


A Lot of Reinvention

by bellabonbon



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emails, Gen, Jealousy, jared-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-10-30 00:44:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 52,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10865520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellabonbon/pseuds/bellabonbon
Summary: Jared didn't realize that writing a few emails could end up changing his life completely. He didn't mean for things to go as far as they did, but he also didn't hate it... At least not at first.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any of these characters or the universe in which they exist. Some dialogue is taken directly from the show. I definitely own none of it.

The doorbell rings, and Jared darts out of his desk chair and runs toward the stairs. His mom is in her office working, and he yells a quick, “Evan’s coming over!” as he passes her door. It’s not like she minds if he has people over- not that he has them over a lot or anything- but he knows she definitely doesn’t care if Evan comes over, so he didn’t even bother telling her.

Evan already looks like he’s about to freak out and run away by the time Jared gets to the door. He has no idea why, considering the fact that this is probably the only house he’s ever visited more than once that didn’t belong to an immediate family member, but whatever. 

“I-is your mom home?” Evan waits for Jared to actually motion him inside before he moves off the porch.

“She’s in her office. Why?” Jared shuts the door and locks it again, even though he assumes his dad should probably be home soon. _Probably_ being the key word. He’s been coming home late a lot, but Jared mostly pretends not to notice. 

“My mom said,” Evan shakes his head like he’s still trying to recover from the horror of having to ring a doorbell. “My mom said to tell her hello.”

“Seriously?” Jared stares at him, waiting for him to realize how lame that sounds, but when it becomes obvious that Evan clearly isn’t going to grasp it, he just waves in the general direction of his mom’s office and lifts his eyebrows expectantly.

He probably shouldn’t be quite as amused at the panic that immediately seems to overtake Evan when he realizes that now he has to go speak to an adult, but it’s his own damn fault for taking something like _tell Sarah I said hi_ as a literal order. What does he think? That his mom is going to call and be like, _”Oh, did Evan not tell you I said hello? I gave him express instructions. I don’t know what’s gotten into him!”_

Jared watches as Evan finally heads toward the office and stops in the doorway. He can hear the conversation, but he makes a point not to be seen. He doesn’t need his mom trying to engage him in whatever weird formalities are currently taking place. 

He hears Evan stumble over his words, _“Oh, hi. Um, hi. My mom, my mom said to tell you hello. So… hello. From my mom. And from me, too, obviously. I mean, yeah, hello.”_

And then he hears his mom’s sugary sweet reply. _“Oh, hi, honey! How have you been? I haven’t seen you in awhile. How’s your mom doing with school and everything?”_ She sounds like the fairy godmother out of a cartoon and not like the woman who just yelled at him twenty minutes ago, _”I swear to god, Jared, if you can’t get your head out of your ass for five minutes and clean your shit up! You’re almost eighteen years old!”_

Whatever. He doesn’t take anything she says seriously anyway.

He stands there impatiently while they finish their little lovefest, and then when Evan’s _finally_ done sucking up to his mother, they head up to Jared’s room. He realizes once, they get there that maybe his mom wasn’t just being a bitch when she yelled at him. It _is_ kind of a mess, but whatever. It’s not like he cares. It’s not like he’s trying to impress Evan, of _all_ people. He sits down at his desk and spins around to look at Evan who’s just standing there kind of awkwardly like he doesn’t know whether he’s allowed to sit on the bed or something. He’s making Jared a nervous wreck.

“Jesus Christ, Evan, sit down.”

Evan does so immediately, and it’s weird that it’s so _weird_. Evan has been coming here since they were barely out of diapers because their moms used to be super close friends. That was back when Evan’s family still came to temple, and their moms were both part of the young mother’s group or something lame like that. They’re still friends or whatever, but they definitely aren’t besties like Jared remembers them being when he was little. They used to be together all the time, and so that obviously meant that he and Evan were together all the time. And Jared’s mom even used to babysit Evan a lot, especially after his dad left and Heidi started working all the time. Evan would come over a lot until Heidi finally managed to work out a stable after school care plan. Jared’s mom always worked from home, and she used to pick both him and Evan up from school and bring them home. So yeah, Evan’s been here a lot. Like a fucking _ton_. So it’s really weird how he still acts like he needs permission to do pretty much anything.

“I have your money.” Evan’s talking to his lap, and Jared just blinks at him because he has no clue what the hell he’s talking about.

“What money?”

Evan digs into his pocket and pulls out a twenty dollar bill. “For the… for the emails. Or whatever.”

Jared almost laughs because he definitely wasn’t being serious about the money. Still, he figures he could always use an extra twenty bucks, so he takes the money and drops it onto his desk. So he’s a dick. So what? It hits him that that might be Evan’s lunch money for the week or something, but seriously. It’s not like he even eats lunch- at least nothing out of the lunch line, that’s for damn sure.

There’s like thirty seconds of weird awkward silence, and Jared yawns because he figures this is Evan’s gig and he should be the one taking the lead. It’s obvious, though, that of _course_ he isn’t, so Jared gives in pretty quickly.

“So tell me again, exactly what kind of tree sex I’m supposed to be writing about?”

Evan turns bright red in two seconds, and it’s kind of hilarious. “It’s not… It’s not, it’s not _like_ that. Just… we just need to say that it was cool hanging out or something.”

Jared nods and pulls his Macbook into his lap and starts typing. “Right. Cool… hanging… out.” He looks up facetiously. “What else?”

Evan doesn’t seem to understand that you can’t literally write that it was _cool hanging out_ , and he just keeps right on with his brainstorming or whatever’s happening in that head. “We need to like… like we need to say that Connor was nice probably because I think maybe like, maybe his mom really wants to hear about that. Like how nice he was or whatever.”

“Connor Murphy wasn’t nice.” 

Evan actually looks halfway offended or something, and then he even sort of _defends_ him. “Maybe he just… Maybe… Did you ever try being nice to _him?_ ”

“Did _you?_ ”

Evan looks down and tugs at his earlobe. He didn’t, and he knows it. And whatever. Connor Murphy was a fucking psychopath, and everyone knows it. His family must be pretty damn desperate if they’re willing to believe some bullshit about climbing trees and picking apples or whatever. Because seriously? The last time Jared had an actual conversation with Connor Murphy was probably in like fifth grade, and even _he_ knows enough to realize there’s no way in _hell_ any of that ever happened.

Evan doesn’t have an answer about being nice to Connor Murphy because he _wasn’t_ nice to Connor Murphy. Sure, he probably wasn’t _mean_ (because he literally doesn’t know how to be mean), but that doesn’t mean he was reaching out trying to be a friend, either. So other than whatever weird homoeroticism that occurred between the time Connor was gigantically signing his name on Evan’s cast and the time he was stealing his letter, Jared’s pretty much willing to bet the two of them never even spoke to each other. 

“Just… we need to just…” Evan swallows. “His mom will probably like it if we make him sound nice.”

Jared rolls his eyes. “His mom would have probably also liked it if he wasn’t a total fucking nutjob who threw printers at teachers and never spoke to anyone and then offed himself like some damn after school special.”

“That’s really mean.” A full, non-stuttered sentence. Three words, but Jared’s still a little impressed, so he lays off the Connor Murphy shit train for a second.

Instead, he focuses his attention back on his computer and starts a draft. 

_“Dear… Evan… Hansen.”_ He says each word as he types. “I guess we should go with the weird formal first and last name thing, since that’s what you did in the sex letter that started all this bullshit.”

“It wasn’t…” Evan huffs up a little, obviously annoyed. It just encourages Jared.

_”We’ve been way too out of touch. It sucks that we don’t get to talk that much anymore, but I think about you a lot.”_ He glances up to see how he’s doing, and Evan actually looks pleased. He nods encouragingly, so Jared keeps going. _”I think about you every night while I’m rubbing my nipples and moaning with delight.”_

“Why would you write that?!” Evan actually jumps up from his place on the bed, and Jared just laughs because it’s fucking hilarious.

“I’m just trying to tell the truth.”

“You know what…” Evan’s shaking his head and licking his lips. “If you aren’t going to take this seriously…”

“Okay, you need to calm yourself.”

“This has to be perfect, okay? These emails have to prove that we were actually friends. They have to be completely realistic!”

Jared shakes his head in mock seriousness while he stands up. “There is nothing _un_ realistic about the love that one man shares for another. Some might say that it is quite beautiful.”

Evan’s totally flustered. “Just… Just… Just go back, Jared!” He grabs the computer, and Jared’s a little surprised when Evan actually takes the desk chair without being offered. Figuring this should at least be good for a laugh, Jared leans over Evan’s shoulder and reads the words that he starts typing.

_Life without you has been hard._

“Hard?” Jared laughs because the dick jokes just write themselves. Evan glares at him and deletes the last few words.

_Has been bad._

“Bad?”

_Has been rough._

“Kinky!”

Evan glares again and deletes the whole line.

_I really miss talking to you about life and other stuff._

“Very specific…” Mr. Lyle, their sophomore English teacher, once told them that he’d immediately fail any paper that used the word very more than twice or that said the word stuff even once. Obviously Evan missed that lesson.

“Shut up…” He doesn’t delete that line and just keeps going.

_I like my parents._

“Who says that?” Jared watches in mild amusement as Evan slams on the backspace.

_I love my parents, but we fight all the time. Maybe if I stop smoking drugs, things might be alright._

Jared almost pees himself. _”Smoking. Drugs!”_

“Just fix it!” Evan’s voice is teetering on hysteria when he jumps up and slams the laptop back into Jared’s hands. 

Jared shakes his head, almost in complete disbelief. He doesn’t know whether to be amused or horrified that Evan actually thinks this is the way normal people talk. “This isn’t realistic at all! It doesn’t even sound like Connor!”

Evan just shakes his head. “Well, I want to show that I was a good friend, that I was trying to help him, you know?”

Fine. Jared plops himself back down, deletes the hilarious smoking drugs line, and then types his own version. 

_Maybe if I stop smoking crack-_

That’s as far as he gets before Evan totally freaks. _”Crack?!”_

Jared’s basically dying as he laughs to himself and writes something remotely normal.

_Maybe if I stop smoking pot, things might be alright. I’ll take your advice about being nicer and stuff._ (He adds it in because he figures Connor probably definitely missed Mr. Lyle’s lesson, too.) _Maybe I can start trying to turn things around._

He finishes the email and thinks it sounds like complete horseshit, but at least it’s better than the crap Evan was typing. He still has to actually create the email account, and he pulls up gmail to start the registration process. 

“Okay, so what should Connor’s secret gay email address be?”

Evan looks annoyed, but he doesn’t even bother arguing. “Something normal.”

Jared nods. “Right. How about… conman69?” Evan glares. “I’m trying to come up with a mashup for orchard and orgasm, but orchasm is really hard to say.”

“Jared.”

Jared laughs to himself and finally lands on a totally safe, totally _lame_ handle that doesn’t send Evan into a panic attack. He fucks around for a little while and manages to backdate a draft before sending it to Evan’s email address.

“Are we done yet?” He’s over this now. Twenty bucks well earned, and now he’s done. Evan, though, seems to have other ideas. 

“Well, I can’t just give them one email…” Evan starts doing that thing where his voice picks up pitch and speed.

“Okay, _please_ stop hyperventilating.”

“I’m not hyperventilating.” He tugs at his shirt nervously and swallows.

“You’re having considerable trouble breathing.”

“No. No, I’m having no trouble breathing.” 

“Do you need a paper bag to breathe into?”

“I’m not hyperventilating!” His voice is almost at its top pitch, and Jared laughs because this is truly the most ridiculous fucking thing he’s ever been a part of. 

What the hell are they even doing?

They end up writing a few emails. Evan keeps wanting to interject random bullshit about some trees, but Jared manages to keep the forest porn to a minimum. He’s actually shocked when Evan doesn’t fight him when he jokes about the two of them possibly appearing to be something more than friends. He purposely points out in the emails that although it might _look_ like they’re super gay for each other, they’re really just the bestest buddies. He’s being totally facetious, but Evan actually seems to think it’s a good addition, so he leaves it. What the hell does he care about it anyway? 

He’s not the one implicating himself as the grieving lover of a suicide victim.

They keep going for awhile, and to be honest, it kind of starts getting pretty entertaining. As lame as the entire thing really is, it’s kind of hilarious that to make up this whole fantasy world where Connor Murphy _wasn’t_ a huge psychopath and was actually some kid who liked to climb trees and talk about self-improvement. It’s just… _insane._ But also kinda fun.

One knock at the door, and then Jared’s mom is letting herself in just like she always does. He slams his computer shut out of habit, and she raises an eyebrow at him just like she always does. 

“Uh, privacy maybe?” He gives her a WTF look, which she immediately mimics.

“Uh, pay your own bills maybe?” 

He rolls his eyes and spins around to put his laptop back on his desk. His mom obviously came here to talk to Evan anyway because she changes her tone to that sweet fairy godmother BS. “Did you want to stay for dinner, honey?”

Evan’s finally gotten over the nervousness of being in Jared’s room and has stopped stuttering to at least a decent extent but the second somebody else talks to him, he falls right back into it. Jared watches him turn pink and mumble into his lap. “I… I… I guessIcanthankyou?” 

It totally sounds like a question, but it gets a smile from Jared’s mom anyway. She loves Evan, always has. Probably because he’s like the anti-Jared. He used to do really crazy stuff like say   
_yes, ma’am_ and _no, ma’am_ , and he’s still totally all _please_ and _thank you,_ so obviously he’s like a mom’s wet dream. 

Speaking of moms…

“Jared, did you think I was just talking for my own benefit when I said clean this up?”

“Jesus, Mom, it’s not even that bad!”

“I cannot see your _floor_.”

“Oh, my _god._ ” He rolls his eyes again because she’s so over-dramatic. He can see plenty of his floor. Like over there by the door where her feet are. How does she think she’s even standing right now if there’s no empty floor space?

“Clean it up.” She’s got that _or else_ thing going on, and really? 

“ _Fine._ Whatever.”

She’s obviously satisfied with that because she drops it. At least for now. “I’m going to order Chinese, so I’ll let you guys know it gets here.”

She _finally_ leaves, and Jared gets up to close the door because she obviously doesn’t believe in leaving a space like she found it. He looks down at the floor and sees a discarded pair of shorts. He kicks them toward the corner.

“Do you… I can help, I can help you clean up?”

Jared looks at Evan like he’s lost his damn mind. “I’m not cleaning this shit up. She’ll get sick of looking at it and do it while I’m at school tomorrow.”

Evan cuts his eyes and looks like he wants to say something else but decides against it. He probably can’t even _imagine_ not doing something his mom tells him to do. Jared has literally _never_ seen him get in trouble in his entire life. He doesn’t think he’s ever even heard Heidi raise her voice. When he was little, he used to be jealous of that, used to wonder what it would be like to have Heidi as a mom instead of his own mom. Heidi always giggled, always smiled and talked sweetly, not just to guests but to Evan, too. She seemed so much cooler than his mom did, younger and less out of touch with reality. She never yelled or nagged or doled out threats, and Jared just used to think Evan was lucky for that- lucky that he never had to have somebody on his ass about everything 24 hours a day.

He wonders what Heidi would think if she knew Evan was pretending to be best friends with a dead kid so that no one would find out he wrote a letter to himself talking about some creepy crush on the dead kid’s sister.

… … … 

He oversleeps the next morning, and he wakes up to his dad banging on his door and yelling at him that he’s going to be late. He grabs his phone and sees that he’s cutting is _super_ close. He can’t be late for homeroom again, or he’s going to end up in detention. There’s no way in hell he’s spending his Saturday at school, so he jumps out of bed and grabs some clothes off the floor. They’re a little wrinkled, but he sniffs them and decides they don’t stink. They’ll do. He barely has time to brush his teeth and comb his hair before he has to run out the door.

“Did you clean your room?” He hears his mom yelling at him from the office as he rushes down the stairs, but he just pretends not to hear her. She’ll find out the answer for herself soon enough.

He’s thankful for the senior parking lot because it’s closer to the school, and he runs into the building and makes it to Mr. Picken’s classroom at literally the same time as the bell. Mr. Picken lifts his eyebrows at him, but doesn’t say anything. _Not late._ So he’s safe.

He goes to his desk and sits down. He’s actually glad for Mr. Picken’s stupid alphabetical assigned seating chart because it means he doesn’t have to look for a place to sit. He glances around to make sure people aren’t staring at him because sometimes it feels like people are staring even when they aren’t. No one’s paying any attention to him, though, so he takes his glasses off and wipes them on the bottom of his t-shirt. He’s sweaty, and they’re starting to fog up a little bit.

Mr. Picken’s at the front of the room talking about some fundraiser bullshit that the school’s trying to force on them because the auditorium needs new seats or something. Jared doesn’t care. He’ll be gone from this place soon enough, so he’s not sure why he’s supposed to care about the auditorium seats getting reupholstered or whatever. Mr. Picken doesn’t seem to care about whether his class and their interest in the fundraiser, though, and he dutifully starts handing out the fliers that the administration has probably forced on him. He hands out stacks to the front rows, and everyone starts passing them back. Jared takes the stack from the girl in front of him, drops one on his own desk, and hands them over his shoulder out of habit.

“I can’t reach that.” 

Jared turns around and sees Madison Newman looking at him like he’s some kind of dumbass. She’s staring at him expectantly, and he wants to ask her why she can’t lean forward, but of course he doesn’t. He would never say something like that to Madison Newman. So he just turns around more fully and holds the stack of papers out for her, reaching over the empty desk that separates them. 

Connor Murphy’s desk. 

Jared wonders if they’re just going to leave it empty for the rest of the year or maybe if eventually Mr. Picken will make Madison move up. No one has done anything about it yet, haven’t even mentioned it. Jared gets some crazy image of Connor sitting there, staring at him with wider eyes than normal, kind of like he’s questioning him or daring him or something. Probably asking if Jared enjoyed himself last night making up a fake life for him. 

He hands the papers to Madison and turns back around before he does something totally stupid like answer his own hallucination and say, _”Yes, Connor, actually I did enjoy it. You’re welcome. I’m sure your fake life is better than your real one was._

Evan finds him after homeroom because of _course_ he does. He looks all red and panicked like he always does in school, even when literally nothing is happening to make him look that way. 

“I have to… I’m going to the Murphys’ after school. To show them the emails.”

Jared nods and holds a hand out expectantly, waiting for the rest of the point because… they definitely already had that entire conversation the night before. He already knows that the plan is for Evan to go over there after school. 

“And?”

“And… and what if…” Evan swallows and starts tugging at the bottom of his shirt. He lowers his voice to an almost whisper and glances around. “Zoemightbethere!”

Jared nods slowly. “Well… she lives there, so…”

“I can’t… I don’t, I can’t deal with that.”

“You literally ate dinner with her two nights ago.”

Evan turns even redder, like just the memory is about to send him into a panic attack. To be fair, Jared kind of can’t believe Evan actually made it through that dinner without ending up in the hospital. He’s almost proud. _Almost_.

“What if she thinks, what if she thinks I’m like a freak? Or something? You know I can’t talk to her to like a normal person!”

“Evan, you can’t talk to _anyone_ like a normal person.”

Evan flinches a little bit. Jared thinks so anyway- sometimes it’s hard to tell if he’s flinching in reaction to something or just because he’s breathing. 

“If Zoe’s there, then she’s there. I mean, if you’re going to be the Murphys’ new puppy, you’re gonna have to look at Zoe occasionally. And not in the weird Instagram stalker kind of way.”

“Maybe you could… Maybe you could just come with me?”

Jared chokes out a laugh. “No way. I am _not_ getting into that.”

Evan frowns, and his eyes start fluttering. Jared rolls his own eyes because he doesn’t have time to deal with this right now. He has to get to calculus. 

“Look. Just text me later, okay? Don’t freak out. And don’t make up any more stories about fucking in an apple orchard! _Please._ ”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Again, I own nothing!

He doesn’t really have any friends in study hall, so he normally just sits by himself. Contrary to what people may believe, Jared is actually a pretty decent student. He doesn’t always put a ton of effort into school, but he usually manages A’s anyway. And it’s not like he _never_ studies. He does his homework and will cram for an hour or two before a test. Study hall is good for that, so he doesn’t care if he’s mostly alone in there. It’s whatever. It’s supposed to be for studying anyway.

He’s catching up on some reading for his government class and also kind of fucking around on his phone when somebody interrupts him. 

“Hi, Jared.”

He looks up and sees Alana Beck. She’s smiling at him, which isn’t weird because she’s usually always smiling. She’s one of those weird people who smiles all the time, even though that smile never really reflects in her voice. It’s weird. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but he’s always kind of wondered what’s going on to make her that way.

“Hey.”

“I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to you yet. How was your summer?”

They’ve only been in school for like a week, and to be honest, he didn’t even know she was in this study hall. He wouldn’t call her a _friend,_ but she’s definitely not one of the assholes of the school. She’s friendly with mostly everyone, even though he hears people talk shit about her kind of a lot.

“It was cool.”

He thinks it’s a generic enough answer, but Alana must keep files on everyone in the school or something because she says, “Did you have fun at camp?” He nods a little uncertainly, even though he obviously _did_ go to camp and have fun. He’s just not sure why she knows that, but she answers his question before he asks it. “I saw the pictures on your Instagram. I’ve never been to camp, but I think it looks pretty fun.”

She’s so weird. Not like a _bad_ weird necessarily, but just… Just the way she talks, all confident and clearly and like she’s punctuating every.single.word… It’s just weird. 

“Yeah… It’s fun…”

“My summer was super busy, but I had fun, too.”

He has a feeling that she wants him to ask about her summer, but he really doesn’t care to hear about whatever non-profit she founded or whatever puppies she saved or whatever law firm she interned at. So instead, he zones in on her wrist. She’s wearing one of those plastic wristbands that used to be popular back in like kindergarten. It’s blue and just says CM on it.

“What’s CM?”

“Huh?” She looks confused for a second, so he points to the bracelet. “Oh! They’re memorial bracelets. For Connor Murphy. Sabrina Patel is selling them for five dollars.”

“For what?”

“So we can all show how much Connor meant to us and to this school.”

Okay, number one, bullshit. Number two…

“But like… for _what?_ Does she think the Murphys can’t afford a funeral or something? I mean, Zoe drives a BMW…”

“Not a brand new one.”

Jared rolls his eyes because that’s totally not the point. Plus, it’s like two years old, so it might as well be brand new, but whatever.

“What. Is. The. Money. For?” He asks the question slowly and pointedly because seriously, why the fuck is Sabrina Patel raising money for Connor Murphy?

Alana looks like she’s pondering the same thing for a second, but then she obviously dismisses it. “I don’t think it’s about the money. It’s more about remembering Connor and how much he meant to all of us.”

Not about the money. Sure. The wheels in Jared’s head are already turning. If people are buying cheap plastic bracelets, what else would they be willing to buy? If _Alana,_ of all people, doesn’t know where the money’s going, that means it’s going nowhere. Sabrina is just pocketing that money, and really, Jared doesn’t hate her for it. 

He thinks it’s stupid, of course, how all of a sudden people are acting like they ever gave a shit about Connor. They didn’t. No one did. Jared doesn’t remember him ever having friends, and most people (sometimes Jared included) have been downright shitty to him. So all this crying and stuff is bullshit. Somebody started a memorial on his locker- or his junior year locker at least. No one even knows where his senior locker should be. The girl who’s supposed to have that locker now said that she’d much rather it be used to honor Connor than hold her crap, so she’s been carrying all of her books in her backpack.

Jared’s like 100.4% sure that Connor would not be a fan of the roses and ribbons that people are putting up to “honor” him.

The school brought in _grief counselors._ Fucking grief counselors. In case anyone needed to talk because _obviously_ the death of the school freak would cause a meltdown of misery among the student body who made his life hell. Of fucking _course._

The stupidest thing, though, is that Jared’s actually seen people going to them- people he _knows_ don’t give a shit about Connor, or at least never did til he offed himself in his bedroom. He sees people crying and hugging each other, and seriously? They’re all so full of shit. 

But if they feel the need to honor Connor to the tune of a monetary gain…

Alana sits down across from him. He has a feeling that she’s about to start telling him her own feelings on Connor. He tries really hard to think if he’s ever seen them together, and the only thing he can come up with is a vague memory of sophomore English. They did a presentation together- at least he thinks they did. Maybe Tom Sawyer or something lame like that. He’s pretty sure he remembers Alana doing all of the talking and Connor flipping the Powerpoint slides. Sounds about right at least.

“It’s really terrible.” Alana sounds very serious, and the smile is temporarily gone. “I feel so bad for his family. Zoe just looks awful.”

Jared thinks that’s probably not something she should say _to_ Zoe, but hopefully she’s not that dumb. 

“I mean, can you imagine? My grandmother died this summer, and it was horrible. Can you imagine if it was your _brother_?”

“I don’t have a brother.”

“I have two.” She flashes a weird, out of place smile. “They’re both older than me. One’s an ER nurse, and the other is a junior at Penn State.”

He has literally no idea why she thinks he cares, but he just nods uncertainly and says, “Cool…”

She nods, like she’s satisfied that he approves of her siblings or some shit, but then she’s right back to business. “I just can’t imagine if something like that happened. It would just be terrible. And _poor Connor._ ”

Jared’s sick of that. Seriously. He’s sick of people saying _poor Connor._ The kid fucking killed himself. Whatever. It’s selfish. Like he literally cannot even imagine that. Life isn’t so damn peachy for him sometimes, either, but it’s high school. It’s shit. Like… it just is. Get over it. 

He kind of thinks the grief counselors would have a ball with him.

But whatever. He just… He just can’t imagine doing that. To like his parents or whatever. He just wouldn’t. So he can’t really find much sympathy for somebody who did.

“I’m thinking about starting a memorial blog. That way people have a place to talk and share their feelings. They can post memories of Connor and how much he meant to them.”

Jared’s memories of Connor include a bunch of sitting in the corner with his head down on his desk, that one time he threw a printer at their teacher in second grade, that other time he broke a stall door off the hinges in the locker room, some more sitting in the corner with his head down, oh, and that one time in seventh grade when he threw a whole tray of food at Matt Holtzer in the cafeteria. 

He wonders what Alana would think if he wrote about that on her blog.

The thing about Alana, though, is that she really doesn’t seem to care what other people think or have to say because she has so much in her own head that apparently just _has_ to get out. “I thought about asking Zoe if she wanted to write something, but I’m not sure if it’s too soon. I wish there was someone else I could talk to, like a really good friend or something, but I never really saw Connor with many people, did you?”

“Talk to Evan.”

He says it before he even realizes it. The words just leave his mouth, and he can’t even tell if he’s joking and being an ass or if he’s just that damn stupid. _Wow, Jared._

“Evan Hansen?” Alana adjusts her glasses, and Jared mimics her almost unconsciously. “Were they friends?”

He should stop talking. He should. But what the hell.

“Yeah, apparently they were like _best_ friends.”

“I don’t even remember ever seeing them together.”

Jared shrugs. “Well, it was a secret, I guess. Connor wanted to keep it a secret, so Evan wasn’t allowed to talk to him at school.”

Alana seems to consider this, and her face twists a little like she’s thinking about something. Then she leans forward just a little bit and lowers her voice. “Are you sure they were just _friends?_ ”

Jared laughs. Like a loud, real laugh. Because… “That’s what I said!” There’s a solid five seconds when he considers changing the story just a little bit and confirming Alana’s suspicions, but he figures Evan might kill him, so he just shakes his head. “But no. They were just friends. Best friends, I guess.”

“I thought Evan was _your_ best friend.”

Jared looks at her in disbelief. “Our _moms_ are friends.”

“You know, now that I think about it, I can see them being friends. I actually suspected that a couple of years ago.”

Jared nods. “Mmm-hmm…”

“How awful for Evan, though.” She frowns like she’s super concerned. “I should reach out to him.”

“Yeah, for sure. He’s kind of a mess over it.”

She shakes her head like she’s just so sad for poor Evan Hansen, and Jared wonders, not for the first time, what the hell is wrong with him.

… … …

He uses the color printer in his mom’s office to print out button sized circles of Connor Murphy’s face. 

If people are that desperate to pretend they aren’t shitty people, then he’ll capitalize on his own shittiness and make some money. He figures that he can get at least five bucks a pop if Sabrina’s getting that for some crappy bracelets. He needs to move quickly, though, because he’s already overheard a couple of other people talking about getting in on the game. He needs to establish his corner of the market and get in while he can. There’s no way this Connor bullshit is going to last too long- a couple of weeks at _best._

Evan Skypes him while he’s printing his stuff, and he almost ignores it because he’s got too much other stuff to be doing right now (like figuring out how to actually make these into buttons). But he answers it anyway, and he’s not surprised at all to see Evan looking panicked and frenzied because how else would he look?

“EveryoneinthewholeschoolthinksConnorandIwerebestfriends!”

Jared shakes his head because… “I don’t know what the hell you just said.”

Evan swallows and looks like he’s trying to calm himself a tiny bit. “A-Alana said… She said, you told everyone about Connor and me, that we were, that we were friends.”

“I didn’t tell _everyone._ I told _her._ ” It’s the truth, too. He barely even spoke to anyone else today except her.

“Why would you do that?!”

“Isn’t that the story?” 

“Not… I mean, not for… the whole school doesn’t need to know!”

Jared rolls his eyes, perfectly aware and not caring at all that Evan can see him. “You realize Zoe goes to our school, right? I mean, I’m sure you’ve spied on her enough in gym class or something to comprehend that she is actually a student. At our school.”

“So?”

“ _So,_ ” he is completely talking out of his ass, but he’s pretty good at it, “don’t you think it might help sell your story to her family just a little bit if she hears it validated somewhere else?”

Evan doesn’t say anything, and Jared can see on his face that he’s considering this thought and buying into it. It’s actually a valid point, now that Jared thinks about it. 

“So let the news make its way around to her, and maybe she’ll eventually stop thinking that you and her dead brother were fucking behind some maple trees.”

“They weren’t map…” Evan shakes his head, and Jared laughs. “Okay, fine. Yes. Okay, yes, maybe that- maybe that makes- maybe that’s a good idea.”

Jared leans back in his mom’s chair while the last page of his project prints. “So you heading back over to play with your new mommy and daddy tonight?”

“My mom’s making tacos.”

“Taco Tuesday, huh?”

Evan nods, and his eyes dart away because even over Skype, he can’t look at somebody for more than five seconds. “She wants me to do some… some sc-scholarship… essays, I guess.” He shrugs one shoulder like he doesn’t know anything else about it, which is fine because Jared doesn’t _care_ anything else about it.

“Well, have fun with your mom, but I got a lot of shit to take care of.”

Evan nods quickly. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Later.”

Jared ends the call before he gets dragged back into something else. He minimizes Skype and immediately starts a search for craft supply stores.

… … …

It turns out that making buttons is super easy. Jared makes fifty in just a few hours. He’s not sure he can actually _sell_ fifty, but if he could, that’d be like… 250 bucks for basically nothing. Not a bad deal for sure.

He tries one on for research and takes a few selfies because mirrors totally lie. They don’t look too bad. Just a big circle with Connor’s face. Nothing fancy, but who needs fancy when a bunch of kids are just trying to insert themselves into somebody else’s tragedy? It’s not the clearest or the greatest picture, but it’s not like had a ton of options. He couldn’t find any kind of socials for Connor, so he had to settle with a scanned picture from last year’s yearbook. 

If these take off, he might try to talk Evan into sneaking some better pictures out of the Murphys’ photo albums or something. Because options.

Jared takes all the buttons and throws them into an old shoebox. He definitely needs to hit the ground running with this tomorrow. Get in, get out, don’t let the bottom drop out before you liquidate the product. Business 101.

“Jared!” 

He hears his dad’s voice, and he immediately stops what he’s doing because it doesn’t sound great. That’s the voice that lets him know he’s obviously done something to piss his parents off, which what else is new, but whatever.

Still, he’s pretty ballsy, so he just yells back, “WHAT?”

“Get down here!”

He rolls his eyes and sets the shoebox on his bed. He tries to think of what he might have done, but he seriously can’t remember anything. At least not right offhand. Or at least nothing that his parents would actually _know_ about anyway. He heads downstairs to find out.

He finds his dad in the kitchen, and he definitely doesn’t look happy. He looks up and kind of glares when Jared slides into view.

“Are you _kidding_ me with this?” He’s holding a paper in each hand and shakes them a little to accent his point.

“Uh… With what?”

That seems to piss his dad off even more, which is pretty stupid because he’s not a fucking mind-reader, and considering his dad’s known him since literal birth, he should be aware of this fact. His dad doesn’t seem to care about that, though. Instead, he just thrusts both papers out, and Jared steps forward to take them timidly.

Annnnnnd… shit.

“Two?! In one day?!” His dad’s definitely not happy.

Jared stares down at the papers in his hands, and sure enough, both tickets are dated with the exact same date. Stupid stoplight cameras shouldn’t even be _legal._ He could probably make a pretty good argument to support his point of view, but it’s not like it matters when his dad has that death stare on.

“Maybe it’s just like a duplicate?”

His dad just gives him that stare. “Don’t be an idiot, Jared. There are timestamps on the damn tickets!”

Jared looks down and sees that his father is, in fact, correct. “Oh.”

Apparently that’s the wrong reaction because his dad’s just over it then. “That’s it. You’re done. Give me your keys.”

 _”Seriously?”_ It totally comes out as a whine, but… _seriously?_

“Oh, yeah, I’m very serious.”

“I’ll pay for the tickets!”

“Yes, you will. And you still owe me for the last one, too. Remember the last one when I warned you not to get any more?”

“Whatever.”

“Really?” His dad just looks at him, and yes, Jared may be ballsy, but he’s not _stupid,_ so he keeps his mouth shut. “Go get your keys.”

He does, but not before he rolls his eyes and makes his nonverbal feelings well known. He’s probably really pushing it, but it’s bullshit, so whatever. He goes to his room and comes back with the keys, which he shoves at his dad with as much vengeance as possible. Or at least as much that won’t get him killed.

His dad fiddles with the keychain and hands him back the house key while pocketing the others. “You can have these back when you come up with a new attitude and cash to cover three tickets.”

Jared says nothing. He has nothing to say. At least nothing safe. He half-expects to get in more trouble for his reaction (or lack thereof), but obviously his dad’s over it because he lets it go. Jared goes back to his room in a huff. He’s pissed off. He doesn’t know why the hell his dad has to be on his ass about every little thing all the fucking time. And if it’s not his dad, it’s his mom. What the hell did he ever do that was so damn bad? 

He slams the door when he gets back to his bedroom, and he waits for the sound of footsteps running up the stairs to let him have it, but it doesn’t happen. His eyes fall on the shoebox, and he sighs a little bit. He _really_ needs to move those buttons now.

There goes his profit.

He hears a familiar notification coming from his computer, and he rolls his eyes. He knows it’s Evan, and he has no desire to hear about Taco Tuesday and whatever awesome scholarship crap he and his mom came up with. He ignores it and goes to get his calculus book. He still hasn’t done his homework, so whatever’s happening with Evan will just have to wait. His phone buzzes from its place on his desk. “Jesus Christ, Evan!” he sneers irritably in the direction of his phone. He ignores that, too. A minute later, though, he hears another Skype notification.

That’s it. Jared slams his book down and gets up to answer the call. He’s not happy at all, and he’s sure it’s obvious when he says, “What the hell is so fucking important?”

“I… I-I-I… Ohmygod.”

Evan looks like a hot mess right now. Legit. His face is bright red, and he’s sweating like crazy. 

“What is wrong with you?”

“I-I… Oh, my god, Jared. Oh, my god. Ohmygod, ohmygod. Jared. I-“

“OH, MY GOD, EVAN!” Jared cuts him out because nope, he’s not doing that. “What the hell?”

Evan starts chattering and stuttering and mumbling and screeching, and Jared can’t understand a damn word. He’s pretty sure he hears the term _gluten-free lasagna,_ (WTF) but that’s seriously all he can make out.

“What the fuck are you even trying to say right now?”

Evan stops and takes a couple of ragged breaths. He’s obviously trying to calm himself down at least a little bit or something. He swallows several times and tugs anxiously at his ear. “I went, I went… I went to the Murphys’-”

“What happened to Taco Tuesday?”

Evan just shakes his head, and Jared just takes that as confirmation that it didn’t happen. Heidi probably had to work or something. She always does.

“Iwenttothe… I went to the Murphys’ house. I… I was in C-Connor’s room…”

“Why the hell were you in Connor’s room?”

“Just… Mrs- Cyn-Cynthia… She just…”

Jared shakes his head. He doesn’t care that much. “Whatever. What the hell happened?”

“Zoe.”

“What about her?”

“Zoe… Z-Zo… I talked to her.”

“You talked to her?” Evan nods, one of those crazy frantic nods. “Like full sentences?”

“I told her… She wanted to know about Connor, so I told her, I told her all the nice things that he said… You know, I told her the nice things he said about her.”

Jared literally facepalms. “Oh, my fucking god…”

“Yeah. So I-I told her the nice things. She wanted to hear, she wanted to hear nice things he said. So I said he liked her smile and that… and I said that her h-hair was… I said he thought it was pretty.”

Jared waits for it to stop. He foolishly thinks that it will stop. He _needs_ it to stop because… “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Well, she was happy!” Evan sounds panicked again, and his voice goes way higher and then drops again. “She liked it…”

“STOP. MAKING. SHIT. UP! Oh, my _god,_ Evan!”

Evan stares at him, like makes actual eye-contact for a good thirty seconds before he just blurts out, “Itriedtokissherohmygod!”

Jared’s eyes go wide, and his mouth actually drops open. He’s rarely at a loss for words, but he just sits there in shock, and his mouth moves open and closed several times… There’s no way he heard that right. There’s no.fucking.way.

… “YOU DID _WHAT?!_ ”


	3. Chapter 3

He ends up babysitting Evan the next day. Because of course he does.

Really, though, it’s either babysit Evan or risk him doing something to _further_ fuck up his entire life. The whole kissing Zoe Murphy on her dead brother’s bed thing? Too much, man. _Too far._

They’re at lunch, sitting at the end of one of the long tables. Jared’s eating, and Evan’s sitting across from him with his head ducked while he spins a water bottle around and around until Jared finally reaches out and grabs it.

“Dude!”

Evan looks up, and Jared hands the bottle back. “Sorry…”

“Eat something.” 

He knows better than that, though, so he takes his fruit cup and slides it over to him. There’s no way Evan would ever do something as dangerous as actually go through the lunch line, and thanks to Michelle Obama, what few other options they have are complete shit anyway. Evan just stares at the fruit cup like he doesn’t know what to do with it, so Jared rolls his eyes and gets up to get him a plastic fork.

“Thanks.” Evan looks down and jams a single cherry onto the fork. 

“Is your mom working tonight?” Evan nods and keeps his focus trained on the fruit. “If you wanna come over, I think my mom’s making lasagna. You know she always makes way too much.”

He doesn’t even know why he says it. He doesn’t make a habit of inviting people over to his house for dinner, but it’s Evan. And that’s different. Still, he didn’t really think about it before he said it, but it’s not like he can take it back. Evan looks surprised at the invitation, but then he kind of half-nods/half-shrugs.

“Y-yeah. Okay…”

Jared takes a bite of his taco and watches Evan poke around at the fruit cup. He feels sorry for him, even though he was a total and complete idiot with the whole making stuff up thing… Seriously, if you’re gonna make shit up, at least make it _believable._ Don’t tell a girl that her dead brother thought her _hair_ was pretty. What kind of fucked up incest shit is he even trying to sell with that crap?

But whatever. It happened. The best thing to do is just let the whole thing blow over. Like he told Evan last night, it was fun while it lasted.

“Hey, Evan.”

Jared snaps out of his thoughts and looks up to see Caroline Smith and Edie Cohen standing beside their table. Caroline’s got a sad smile on her face, and she looks down at Evan sympathetically and says, “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about Connor. I know how close you guys were.”

Evan’s face is so red, it almost looks like the cherry that he’s still got stabbed on the end of his fork. Jared thinks briefly about making the joke, but instead, he just sits there in stunned silence because two super hot girls are standing there _talking_ to them. Or talking to Evan, he guesses, but Jared’s totally right there, too.

Evan opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but all that comes out is some kind of strangled noise. Jared almost dies of second-hand embarrassment, but Caroline just puts her hand on Evan’s shoulder- _touches him_ \- and says, “Oh, I didn’t mean to make you upset. I just wanted to tell you that I’m thinking of you. And if you ever need to talk or anything, I’m a very good listener.”

Evan’s head moves up and down really fast like he’s having some kind of seizure or something. Jared kicks him under the table, and he stops. Then he just nods like a normal person and finally puts the damn cherry in his mouth.

“Oh, hey, do you know where I can get one of those?” Now it’s Edie talking, and she’s talking to Jared. He blinks at her because… huh? Also because his brain kind of short-circuits. She looks at him weirdly but then motions at his chest. Jared looks down and sees the button on his shirt.

“Oh! Um, yeah. I’m actually selling them.” He reaches into his backpack and pulls out the shoebox. “Did you want one?”

Edie nods. “Yeah, sure. How much?”

“Five bucks.”

Edie looks in her purse. “All I have is a twenty. Do you have change?”

He shakes his head, wishing really hard that he’d thought this through better. It never occurred to him that he might need to make change, and he feels like a dumbass right now. Edie just shrugs, though. “Oh, well. Just give me four of them then.”

Jared tries not to show how fucking stoked he is to actually be making a sale. To _Edie Cohen,_ at that. He thinks he does a pretty good job of acting cool as he grabs four buttons and takes her money.

‘Thanks.” Edie pins one to her own jacket and hands one to Caroline. “I’ll spread the word.”

The girls walk off, but not before Caroline flashes Evan another sad smile. Once they’re safely out of earshot, Jared lets out a damn squeak. “Holy shit, dude!”

Evan’s still bright red, and he kind of looks like he might explode. “D-does… everyone… Does everyone know?”

“I guess so.” Jared shakes his head. “What the fuck, man…”

“What do I do?”

Jared shoves a button at him. “Put this on.”

Evan looks at the button his hand. “I-I don’t have any money…”

“Family friend discount.” Jared shakes his head. “Just put it on.”

The thing about Evan is that he’s always been really good at doing what people tell him to do. When they were little, Jared could get him to do just about anything, which was a really cool trait to have in a playmate. Even now that they’re practically grown, Evan will still do just about anything anyone tells him to do. Unless, of course, you tell him _not_ to invent entire relationships with dead people that never fucking happened.

Apparently that’s the one order he doesn’t know how to follow.

Evan pins the button to his shirt, and Jared thinks it looks pretty stupid. He realizes that means he probably looks pretty stupid as well, but whatever. He’s not doing this for the fashion sense. He’s doing it to make money, which is exactly what happens.

Between two of the popular girls _and_ Connor’s alleged best friend wearing the buttons, Jared actually sells out before sixth period. He talks to more people that day than he probably has in the last two years combined, and not a single one of them calls him a loser or tells him to fuck off. It’s basically the best day ever, and Jared’s feeling pretty great as he counts his cash in the back of his sociology class. 

He remembers that some things still suck, though, like when the bell rings and he has to head to the bus instead of to his car. Now that he’s got cash, he wonders if his dad will cut him a break and just give him back his car. He didn’t actually put a timeline on it, so maybe he can get his keys back sooner rather than later. He definitely doesn’t have them now, though, which means he has to go all the way to the back of the school to catch his bus. 

The bus stop is right outside the auditorium, which means he has to pass through the music wing. It’s always pretty crowded after school with kids trying to get to the buses and other kids congregating before band or choir practice. Jared’s bus is always late, so he’s not really that concerned about fighting his way through the crowd, and he takes his time.

Maybe he shouldn’t.

He hears Zoe Murphy before he sees her. Her voice comes from his right, and he looks over to see her leaning against the wall with one of her friends. She’s got her guitar case sitting in front of her, and her arms are crossed defensively. 

“Nice button.”

He stops walking and feels strangely guilty for a second. “Oh… Um, yeah-“

“You didn’t offer me one.” She’s looking at him expectantly, and he feels like this is probably a trap. He doesn’t necessarily have proof of that, though, so he just gives a careful answer.

“You can, you can have this one if you want…” He starts to unpin the button from his shirt, but she just glares at him.

“Are you kidding me?” He doesn’t know what to say, so he just looks at her. She’s still glaring, and then she shakes her head. “Have fun, jackass.”

She picks up her guitar case, and she and her friend disappear into the band room. Jared doesn’t say anything. He has nothing to say. So he just… doesn’t.

He’s also not too surprised to find out that despite the number of people who talked to him today, he still ends up sitting alone on the bus.

… … …

His mom lets him borrow her car to go pick Evan up. He takes that as a mini-win and even stops to fill up her car because maybe his parents will see how responsible he is and stop being dicks. Granted, her car’s already nearly full, so he’s only really out like four bucks, but still. Evan’s sitting in the front seat scraping his fingernails across the material of the seatbelt, and Jared gets back into the car and grabs his hand to stop him.

“You need to chill out.”

Evan looks at him, blinks, and then nods. Jared tentatively releases his hand and starts the car. Evan starts scratching at the skin under his cast instead.

“Maybe… maybe we should write more emails? You think?” 

Jared drops his head backward and groans. “Oh, my _god_ , Evan. No. It’s over. I told you.”

“I just, I just feel so bad. Mrs- Cynthia… She’s just so sad…”

Jared tries really hard not to roll his eyes as he pulls back into the street. “Well, no shit. Her kid killed himself. She’s probably gonna be sad for the rest of her life.”

“But I can make her feel better. M-maybe?”

“It’s not your responsibility. She’s got her own kid to do that. Who, by the way, is kind of a bitch. Not sure what you’re so obsessed with.”

“She’s not a…” Evan sounds like he’s about to forcibly protest, like he’s pissed or something, but it gets weaker a second later when he realizes it. “Don’t say that.”

Jared thinks back to their interaction this afternoon and how she was the only person all day to be a jerk to him. He’s not sure why she couldn’t just ignore him like she’s been doing her whole life- not sure why she had to make him feel like shit on a relatively good day. Just because her life’s crap, that doesn’t mean she has to make other people feel the same way.

He could say all of that, but instead, he just says, “Why? You think just because you tried to shove your tongue down her throat that she’s suddenly not a stuck up spoiled rich bitch?”

“Don’t call her that.” Evan’s obviously getting mad, and he’s even speaking in coherent sentences. Jared doesn’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“Sorry. Didn’t realize you were suddenly her savior and protector now that you’ve actually exchanged a full sentence with her.”

Evan doesn’t say anything else. He’s mad, Jared can tell. A part of him wishes that Evan would just _say_ that he’s pissed. He doesn’t know why really. He can’t remember a single time that Evan has ever really expressed anger at him. He really has no idea why he’s thinking about it now.

They get home, and Jared rolls his eyes while his mom fawns over Evan. She always does. Always has. Jared sits at the kitchen island and watches while Evan tries to have a conversation. He watches as his mom listens patiently and doesn’t cut Evan off or snap at him to just spit out whatever the hell he’s trying to say when he starts stuttering. She’s never that patient with Jared.

Jared’s never that patient with Evan.

“How long til food’s done?” He interrupts their moment, and his mom turns around and looks a little annoyed at him.

“Probably another hour. Is that okay with you?”

He shrugs. “It’s fine. I’m gonna go finish my calculus.” He looks at Evan expectantly, waiting for him to join him after he slides off the barstool. Evan looks at him and then glances away.

“I-I’ll help your mom…”

“Whatever. Have fun.” 

Fucking Evan. What the fuck. Jared has to force himself not to slam his bedroom door when he gets upstairs because he doesn’t want to bring attention to the fact that he obviously cares that Evan is pissed at him. _Why_ does he care that Evan is pissed at him? He doesn’t care. It’s _Evan_. Who cares if he’d rather hang out with Jared’s mom than with Jared? It’s his loss.

He doesn’t actually have any interest in his calculus right now, so he sits down at his desk and pulls his phone out. He has two follow requests, and he opens Instagram to check them. 

“Holy shit…”

Edie Cohen _and_ Caroline Smith. 

He practically breaks his finger accepting the follow requests. 

He wonders if he should try making more buttons. He might be able to make a few more bucks before all of this falls through. He knows the clock on the timeframe is ticking quickly, but he might be able to squeeze a little bit more out of it. Maybe he can talk his mom into letting him borrow the car again or at least into driving him to Hobby Lobby so he can pick up more supplies. Of course, if she drives him, she’s going to ask questions, and somehow, he’s not sure that she’d be totally cool with the whole profiting off teenage suicide thing…

Actually, he thinks that’s probably a good way to get grounded and _not_ get his car back for a really long time. 

He scrolls through his Instagram feed and is surprised to see several posts of people with their Connor Murphy memorabilia. #ConnorMurphy #RIP #wemissyou 

It’s bullshit. Like seriously. It’s all bullshit, but whatever. Without thinking about it, he pulls up Zoe Murphy’s account. He doesn’t follow her, but he knows she’s not private because Evan’s been stalking her for years. 

There’s not a single mention of Connor.

Well, that’s not true. He scrolls through her account down to a picture posted on December 25, 2014. A family photo. Two smiling parents, a smiling daughter, and a son who isn’t smiling but is obviously willing to at least humor his sister as she takes a selfie in front of a Christmas tree. It’s hashtagged #MerryMurphys. 

Further down, he finds a #TBT of two kids dressed in embarrassingly similar plaid prints, probably four or five years old, both sitting in front of some photo studio backdrop. Zoe has it labeled with three laughing emojis and #awkward.

He keeps scrolling and finds a few more remnants of Connor. A picture from a few years ago that looks like Zoe, Connor, and maybe some cousins. Another picture from when they were kids- maybe eight or nine- in swimsuits leaning against a balcony overlooking the ocean. Another full family shot from years ago, obviously another awkward professional family shoot. 

Looking at those pictures by themselves, you wouldn’t know anything was wrong. 

Jared wonders what _was_ wrong.

He realizes he’s way too into Zoe’s Instagram and starts feeling Evan levels of stalker creep, so he backs out. Instead, he looks at Edie’s story and sees that cheerleading practice looks particularly lit for a random Thursday afternoon. He watches twice for good measure.

Soon enough, though, he hears footsteps coming his direction, and Evan’s standing in the doorway. “Your mom said dinner is ready.”

Jared pockets his phone and resists the urge to say something snarky. Instead, he just follows Evan downstairs and wonders if he can sense that Jared’s been stalking his fantasy girlfriend. His dad isn’t home, which isn’t that unusual these days. Jared kind of wonders if he’s having an affair or something. Something lame like screwing an intern or something. Surely he’s not screwing his secretary- she’s like sixty. To be honest, Jared doesn’t even know if accounting firms _have_ interns. 

He doesn’t wonder any of this out loud as he sits down at the table.

He knows he’s a little spoiled, realizes this when Evan starts helping to put the food out and get the dishes down, and Jared just sits down and waits for his mom to do it. She does, though, even scoops out some lasagna for him and puts it on a plate. He’s going to be at college next year. Maybe he should figure out how to scoop his own food.

Dinner’s not so bad. He can tell Evan’s still mad at him, but he doesn’t think it’s obvious enough that his mom would notice. She just talks to them about school, talks to Evan about his summer, how his mom’s doing… She doesn’t snap at Jared or anything, and he doesn’t really say anything to piss her off. Evan actually eats for once, even almost cleans his plate. All in all, it’s not a bad night. 

But Evan doesn’t say much to him on the ride back to his house, and Jared thinks that’s kind of crappy. Whatever.

… …. ….

Evan’s obviously over it by the next day. Either that, or he’s just really desperate because he finds him in the cafeteria and sits down. Jared just looks at him when he sits down, and Evan looks like he’s kind of extra nervous or something. 

He doesn’t say anything, and Jared can’t take it anymore, so he finally just says, “Spit it out.”

“People keep talking to me…” He won’t even make eye-contact with Jared, so that probably doesn’t bode well for these other conversations. “They want… they want to know about Connor…”

“Well, good things you guys were such great buddies. You should have plenty to tell them.”

“Jared…”

“What?” Jared wonders why he’s hanging onto this bitterness, but seriously, Evan can’t just be a dick to him all night and then pretend like nothing happened the next day. Jared realizes he actually does the very same thing a lot, but that’s not the point right now.

“I-I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I didn’t, I don’t… What do I tell people?”

Jared shrugs and takes a giant bite of his pizza. “Ask them to sign the cast you got when Mr. Suicide saved you in the forest.” He’s talking with his mouth full, and he doesn’t even really know if Evan can understand him. He doesn’t really care.

It doesn’t matter anyway because they get interrupted. It’s not a couple of cheerleaders this time, though, it’s just Alana. She looks very determined and serious as she slides into the empty chair beside Evan and looks at him seriously. 

“I’m going to do a Facebook Live video after school to talk about Connor and how the school is coping. I thought you might like to be a part of it.”

Jared snorts. Actually snorts. Alana looks around at him strangely, and Evan just sits there frozen like he might actually fucking die or something. He starts stuttering out, “I-I-I-I… I don’t… I-I can’t…”

Jared could jump in. Maybe help translate or something. He doesn’t though. He just sits there and lets Evan turn red and freak out, and Alana looks so confused. Jared takes another bite of pizza and feels like the living embodiment of a popcorn meme. Just without the popcorn obviously. 

“I know everyone would love to hear from you. Maybe you could tell us some of your favorite memories with Connor?”

Evan looks like he’s half a step away from a full-on panic attack, and seriously? The last thing Jared needs is to be associated with that, so he finally steps in. “Yeah, he can’t talk in front of people.”

Alana gives him another weird look, and Evan just stares down at the table, but he seems to actually be breathing again. “Why not?” Alana sounds legitimately confused, which is dumb, since she’s gone to school with them since middle school. Surely, she’s witnessed some project presentation disaster or something during that time. 

“Because of that!” Jared laughs a little and holds a hand out, presenting a near tears Evan who’s still just sitting there with his red face and who’s still panicking at least a little bit.

Alana seems to understand, and she now looks concerned instead of confused. “I’m so sorry, Evan.” She puts a hand on his shoulder gently. “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I should have been more sensitive. I know you’re still hurting.”

Jared rolls his eyes and takes a drink of his milk so that he doesn’t say what’s really in his head. Like how stupid it is that all these people- all these _girls_ , at that- are fucking falling over themselves to coddle Evan? To coddle him over something that’s a great big giant fucking _lie_ at that. This is all so stupid. 

Seriously. He can’t wait for this whole Connor thing to play out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of these characters.

It literally takes like a week for everything to start dying down. Jared obviously knew that would happen- predicted it, told Evan about it and everything. That’s just how things go. 

Everyone wants to be an activist, but nobody wants to _be_ one.

Their whole school is made up of ADD laden, social media obsessed, lazy, mostly vapid teenagers. A classmate dying is a big deal, sure. But it’s not going to hold their attention for more than a few days. Especially a classmate that they didn’t even _know_. People move on. It happens. Big deal.

Jared really couldn’t care less. He’s made just about as much as he can off of his merchandise hustle, and that’s about as far as his level of fuck giving goes. 

The only people who seem to still care are Evan and Alana. Evan keeps mumbling stuff about how he should try to “help the Murphys,” and Jared doesn’t know why the hell he’s so obsessed with them. Well, besides Zoe anyway. Evan wonders how much of the motive behind _helping the Murphys_ is really _helping Zoe._ And by _helping,_ he means trying to get into her pants.

Except it’s Evan, and he probably doesn’t even know what that means.

Alana, though, is a totally different story. She just won’t _let it go._

She keeps tagging along after Evan everywhere, asking him to help her do things to honor Connor. She keeps talking about blogs and reaching out via Twitter and a bunch of other crap. Evan acts like he doesn’t know whether to go along with her or just accept that it’s over and get out while he’s ahead.

“It’s over, dude. Seriously.” Jared’s barely paying attention to the Skype conversation because he’s got like five-thousand hours of physics due, and he just doesn’t have time for this. 

Evan, though, clearly has no one else to talk to because he just keeps mumbling a bunch of crap about people forgetting about Connor.

“He wanted to be forgotten! If he wanted to be remembered, he would have done something with his life instead of ending it. Seriously, man. Just let it go.”

“But what if…” Evan looks super conflicted when Jared glances up at the screen from his work. “No one deserves to be forgotten.”

Jared rolls his eyes. “It’s _over,_ Evan.”

“B-but Alana-“

Jared groans in frustration and looks up. “Alana’s just looking for something to boost her college applications! She doesn’t care about Connor, either!”

Evan looks embarrassed or maybe like his feelings are hurt or something, but _Jesus Christ._ This is just getting ridiculous, and he literally doesn’t have time for this crap.

“Look, I have a shit ton of homework. I gotta get it done, or my dad’s gonna kick my ass. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

In reality, his dad has zero knowledge about his homework situation or anything having to do with it. It’s an easy out, though, and it works because Evan nods and stutters out an apology before Jared cuts the call.

He really does have a ton of homework.

His parents are on his ass big time about college, and he knows he’s got to face that pretty soon. Application deadlines will be here before anyone knows it, and… Well, whatever. He needs to start making some decisions and being proactive.

Part of him thinks college might be awesome. Like just going somewhere brand new and starting all over. Nobody knows you or has preconceived notions, and maybe it’ll be like the best thing ever. Another part of him is a little worried that college will just be like a giant version of high school. Only this time, he won’t know _anybody._

Whatever. It’s dumb. He has to go to college. His dad really _will_ kick his ass if he tries to say he doesn’t want to. 

But surely… Maybe it’ll be like camp. He loves camp. People actually like him there and talk to him, and he doesn’t spend the whole time just trying to blend into the background because it’s a hell of a lot easier than being noticed. So maybe it’ll just be like that. Maybe it’s just the idiots at his school that suck so bad. Maybe the rest of the world doesn’t.

So yeah. College is definitely, probably going to be awesome. He just needs to narrow down his options and start filling out applications. He doesn’t need to sit there worrying about crap because really, anything is better than this shit he has to deal with now. 

… … …

Alana finds him in the hallway on Thursday. She comes up to his locker and stands there staring at him until he acknowledges her. 

“Yes?”

“You should talk to Evan.”

He rolls his eyes and pulls his psych book out of his locker. “I talk to Evan all the time.”

It’s not really a lie. He definitely talks to Evan more than anyone else does. He definitely talks to Evan more than _he_ talks to anyone else. 

“I can tell how upset he still is over Connor. He’s just so _sad_.”

Jared doesn’t roll his eyes again, but he bites hard on the inside of his cheek to keep his words in. He wants to scream from the top of the fucking building that EVAN HANSEN DID NOT FUCKING KNOW CONNOR MURPHY!

He doesn’t.

Instead, he says, “I’m sure he’s coping just fine.”

“But what if he’s not?” Alana looks totally serious and concerned. “He’s okay right now because so many people are sharing their own stories and remembering Connor, but what’s going to happen when everything just goes back to the way it used to be?”

He can’t _wait_ for everything to just go back to the way it used to be. He’s so sick of watching all these people coddle Evan just because he made up some crazy lie that- by the way- nobody in their right fucking mind should ever believe. 

But then, just like some crazy twist of fate or something, Evan comes strolling up to them clutching his backpack and looking like he’s on some kind of mission. “Hey,” he breathes out, glancing around like he thinks people might be watching them or something.

“Hey, Evan.” Alana’s all smiles, and she even reaches over to hug him. Jared can’t help it this time- his eyes roll on their own.

Evan’s not stuttering around too much, but he looks super keyed up and like he’s very determined about something. “Can I, can I talk to you guys?”

Jared almost points out that the bell is going to ring any second, but Alana cuts him off before he gets the chance. “Of course!”

“I, uh, I made something. I mean, I had an idea. I just…” He reaches into his backpack and pulls out some kind of pamphlet. “I want to do something.”

He hands the brochure to Alana, and Jared looks over her shoulder at it. There’s a picture of Connor on it, and Jared can already tell this is a terrible idea.

“I’m calling it The Connor Project.” Evan motions at the brochure, which very plainly says _The Connor Project_ right under the emo as hell picture of Connor.

“The Connor Project?” Jared tries to make his voice sound just judgey enough that Evan will pick up on it but not judgey enough that Alana will. Evan, though, misses it completely and just starts rambling about his idea.

“A student group dedicated to keeping Connor’s memory alive… t-to showing that everybody should matter… T-that everybody is important.”

Jared wants to stop him right there. There’s no way this is a good idea. No freaking way. Alana’s already off and running with it, though.

“I am so honored. I would love to be vice-president of The Connor Project.”

“Vice-president!” Evan kind of nods and does some weird motion of agreement with his hand.

“You’re right. We should be _co_ -presidents.”

“Yeah, no, definitely! That, that works for me!”

Jared’s head flips back and forth between the two of them, wondering how it’s even possible that this is entirely the extent of his social circle at this school. They’re both crazy. The next thing he knows, though, Alana is reaching over and grabbing his arm.

“You can be treasurer. Or secretary. Unfortunately, the co-president position has already been filled.”

“Wellllll, shit.”

He just stares at her because… How is this real? He mentions something about his buttons and wonders out loud how difficult it would be to fit words onto them. He takes the brochure from Alana and glances over it while she and Evan talk more about The Connor Project. 

The idea behind it isn’t terrible. Not really. Like if you take away the suicide aspect of it. Or you take away the lying aspect of it. Like… it’s not _terrible._ He can tell Evan must have spent a lot of time working on this. The whole thing looks really well-thought out, and Jared thinks how much better Evan is at getting his point across when he’s able to just write it down.

Somehow, and he’s really not even sure how, he kind of buys into the whole idea. He doesn’t really think it can _hurt_ if the school holds an assembly remembering Connor. It’s not a _bad_ thing if the kids in their school start being a little nicer to each other. He wouldn’t hate it if people were nicer to him anyway. 

Plus, those college applications _do_ need something in those extracurricular activities sections. So far, his include a couple of lame things like Spanish Club (which he only joined for extra credit) and a handful of service projects through BBYO. 

It probably couldn’t _hurt_ to be treasurer of something like this…

So against his own best judgment, he decides to at least tag along when Alana tells Evan that they need to go talk to the Murphys’. Plus, if nothing else, at least Jared can stop Evan from trying to make out with Zoe again. So there’s that.

… … …

Alana drives them, and Jared sits in the back while Evan sits up front and gives uncertain directions. Apparently, they’re right, though, because he tells Alana to turn into a subdivision, and Jared can tell right away that this is _exactly_ the kind of place the Murphys would live. The houses are new and large, and every single lawn is perfectly landscaped. It looks like some kind of Stepford movie shit or something. 

And when they pull up to the Murphys’ house, he just shakes his head.

The place is huge. Like… they have (had) two kids- not six. It’s ridiculous.

“What kind of dumbass offs himself with parents this rich?”

He’s just saying what he knows the others are thinking, but they both turn around and look at him like he’s some kind of monster or something. Whatever. He’s being serious. Look, his family’s not poor. Not by any means. He knows that. They’ve got plenty of money- enough to live comfortably and still go on vacation every summer. They’ve got enough to buy him a car and send him to camp every year. They had enough to throw him a pretty kickass Bar Mitzvah when he was thirteen. His birthday and Hanukkah are always pretty rad, and he pretty much stays stocked with the latest gaming system. He _knows_ he doesn’t have anything to complain about.

But _damn…_ This place makes his house look like a fucking shack.

They get out and go up to ring the doorbell, and Jared feels weird because what the hell are they even doing? This is ridiculous, right? He can’t stop feeling like they’re about to take it too far. On the other hand… All of his thinking about the Connor Project is almost making _him_ think it’s a good idea. What is he doing?

A woman answers the door, and Jared assumes she must be Connor’s mom. Her eyes light up a little bit when she sees Evan, and she immediately wraps her arms around him and hugs him. Jared is used to this- parents loving Evan. Hell, look at his own mom. The difference, though, is that his mom isn’t basing her fawning on fake email accounts that _never happened._

Mrs. Murphy is obviously surprised to see Evan, but he stutters out an introduction. “These are my… my friends.” He drops his voice on the last word, and for once Jared doesn’t jump in to correct him. “Alana and J-Jared.” He takes a quick breath. “We, uh, we wanted to… Do you think, do you think we could talk to you?”

Mrs. Murphy nods frantically. “Of course! Come in.” She stands aside to let them in and smiles at Alana and Jared. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

Jared feels super uncomfortable stepping into this woman’s house, but Alana acts like she does this every day. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Your home is so lovely.”

Lovely’s kind of an understatement. Jared looks around at the room they step into, and he wonders if they have a housekeeper or something. He’s never seen a house this clean before in his life. Even when his parents are hosting a dinner party, and his mom goes crazy the whole week before, scrubbing every surface and dusting every item in the house… It’s still not _this clean._

They follow Mrs. Murphy into the kitchen, and she motions for them to sit down at the table in the corner. “Let me get you something to drink. Do you want me to fix you a snack?” 

She sounds so eager and like… hopeful or something. It’s kind of weird. It’s like she just wants to take care of them and feed them, and Jared feels really awkward. He has a feeling that she is one of those moms who made her kids after-school snacks every day until they were way too old to care about cookies and milk or ants on a log or whatever it is that those kind of moms fix for their kids.

Evan starts to shake his head, “N-no, that’s-“

“That’d be great.” Jared has zero idea why he says it. He came here with the intention of saying absolutely nothing, so he’s not sure why he’s asking for a snack. He just feels like that’s what Mrs. Murphy wants to hear, and that she’ll be secretly disappointed if they refuse.

She looks relieved and smiles really wide. She nods and tells them to just “hang tight.” Alana and Evan both look at him like he did something wrong. Like they think he’s just that greedy that he wants this woman to make them food because he’s hungry or something. But that’s not it. He’s not even hungry. He just has a feeling that accepting her offer is the best way to make her feel better.

He doesn’t even know why.

The kitchen is as clean as the rest of the house. Everything is white and very bright. White appliances, white cabinets, white barstools at the island… Jared has the strangest vision of Connor in this super white kitchen, and he almost laughs. He stops himself before he does.

Mrs. Murphy brings them glasses with ice and then brings over a pitcher of lemonade that has actual fucking lemon slices in it, and Jared feels like he’s in some kind of twilight zone. If they have lemonade at his house, it’s either in a store-bought 2-liter bottle or made from a Kool-aid mix. But he can’t remember the last time they had lemonade.

Jared makes the first move and pours himself some because he can tell Evan and Alana are both still thinking that this is inappropriate. Once he rips the band-aid, though, the other two eventually pour themselves some, too.

Mrs. Murphy messes around at the counter for several minutes while they sit there drinking their lemonade and looking at each other. She talks to them over her shoulder, asking them how school is going, asking if they’re all seniors and if they’re excited for graduation. And all Jared can think about is how she was probably looking forward to planning a graduation party this year that won’t happen.

She returns to the table with a tray of pretzel sticks and apple slices and some kind of tan-looking dip. “It’s peanut butter dip,” she explains as she sets the tray down. “Greek yogurt, organic peanut butter. Locally grown apples and gluten-free pretzels.” She announces all of this like it’s something she’s incredibly proud of, and Jared notices that they all kind of awkwardly return her smile because…. “Oh! Let me get you plates.”

She brings them those heavy porcelain plates that are obviously supposed to be used for bread or dessert or something because they’re too small to be dinner plates. Jared wonders how expensive they are. Unless they have company over (and even sometimes if they do), they always eat off paper in his house. 

“Connor always loved this dip. He used to ask me to make it all the time when he was little.” She talks quickly and pointedly while she spoons dip onto all of their plates. “Did he ever tell you about it, Evan?”

Evan makes quick eye-contact with Jared before he jerks his eyes away and looks back at Mrs. Murphy. He nods his head rapidly. “Yes. Yes, he, uh, he loved it. A lot.”

And the way Mrs. Murphy smiles at the answer- like actually really genuinely- Jared can _almost_ understand why Evan keeps lying.

To be fair, the dip is pretty good. And gluten-free pretzels taste pretty much like normal pretzels. Mrs. Murphy sits with them and keeps talking to them like she’s genuinely interested in their answers. 

Jared doesn’t know what kind of person he imagined to have birthed and raised Connor Murphy, but this woman is not it.

They hear a door open and close, and then a girl’s voice calls out, “Whose car is that?” And then there’s Zoe Murphy, and Jared doesn’t know why he’s surprised considering the fact that this is, you know, her house. He is, though, but not as much as she is. She stops and just looks at the whole table.

“Zoe! Evan brought some friends over! Do you know Alana and Jas… Jared?” She looks at him for confirmation, and he nods. 

Zoe just stares at them. She doesn’t answer and doesn’t look slightly amused. Evan looks like he wants to run out the door. Alana smiles and says, “Hi , Zoe.” Jared says nothing.

“Come sit down and have a snack.” Mrs. Murphy gets up to offer her daughter the fourth chair at the table, but Zoe just shakes her head. 

“No, thanks.”

Her mom looks kind of uncomfortable or maybe like she’s a little embarrassed because she thinks her daughter’s being rude to company or something. But she probably doesn’t know that out of that “company,” one of them tried to kiss her daughter on her dead son’s bed or that another one made a couple hundred bucks selling buttons with that dead son’s face on them. 

“What are you doing here?” Zoe gets straight to the point, looking at all of them but mostly at Evan. He looks nervous and goes a little red.

“We, um,” Evan twists around in his chair. “We wanted to talk to your family. About… about C-Connor.”

“What about him?”

“We, uh.” Evan swallows uncomfortably. “Is, is Mr. Murphy going to be home soon?”

Mrs. Murphy jumps in then. “Oh, I’ll call him. You kids sit tight. Zoe, eat something.” She motions at the table again and then hurries out of the room.

Zoe stands there with her lips pursed for a long second before she finally drops her backpack in a huff and sits down in the empty chair like it’s a big chore. “Why are you here?” she asks again. 

Jared refuses to say anything because he’s kind of scared that Zoe might punch him or cuss him out or something. Luckily, Alana is more than happy to make up the silence, so she says, “Evan had a great idea about starting a social media campaign to honor Connor. But not just for Connor. For everyone or anyone who has felt like Connor did. Anyone who needs to know that they matter or that someone out there is feeling just like they are.”

Jared’s not sure how she manages to sound so confident, like this is something she is seriously passionate about. He thinks she’s probably _seriously passionate_ about a lot of stuff. But still.

Zoe makes a face, and then she rolls her eyes. And then she makes another face and crosses her arms as she slumps back in her chair.

“N-nobody should just disappear.” Evan’s voice is quiet, and he’s just looking at the table because he’s definitely not going to make eye contact with anyone.

Zoe still looks pissed off, but she doesn’t snap at Evan. She just looks at him and then turns to Jared. “And how much money are you going to make off of this?”

He tells himself not to feel guilty. He’s not the only one who was doing it. And whatever. He’s not going to feel… “I’m donating the money from the buttons to the project.”

Okay, _what?_

He has no fucking idea why that just came out of his mouth, but now it’s out there. He feels Alana and Evan both looking at him, but he just looks at Zoe. She’s got her eyes narrowed, and her arms are still crossed. She doesn’t believe him, he can tell. Somehow that knowledge forces his mouth to start moving again.

“We’re planning a major fundraising drive. And… The money I made, it will be a good start.”

He’s never getting his fucking car back.

Zoe stares at him for another long minute, but then she finally uncrosses her arms and drops the glare. She doesn’t actually comment on his claims, but she doesn’t necessarily look like she wants to shoot him anymore, either. Instead, she just looks at the tray in the middle of the table and says, “Are those the gluten-free pretzels?” 

Alana nods, and Zoe rolls her eyes and reaches for an apple slice.

… … …

Jared’s in his room, reading The Connor Project pamphlet for probably the hundredth time. It’s like it’s drawing him in or something. It’s so dumb, but he just keeps reading it.

Alana and Evan (mostly Alana) are planning some big memorial assembly for Saturday morning. It’s supposed to be a chance for anyone who wants to talk to share their memories or feelings or whatever. The Murphys’ are going to be there. He’s pretty sure Mrs. Murphy is even going to talk. The jazz band is going to play a tribute set. Alana’s roped the cheerleaders and the student council into contributing. It should be pretty cool if it actually goes off without a hitch.

Jared wonders what Connor would think about it.

The Connor he knew would think it was lame, maybe even be pissed off about it. But he didn’t really know Connor. He never _wanted_ to know Connor. Maybe deep down, this is exactly what Connor would want. Maybe he just felt really alone or something, and maybe he’d just want people to acknowledge that and try to do better.

Yeah. Maybe.

His phone buzzes from the nightstand where it’s charging, and he glances at it and sees Evan’s name. He realizes he doesn’t even roll his eyes when he answers it.

“Hello?”

“TheMurphyswantmetotalkattheassemblyandIdontknowwhattodo.”

Jared takes a second to translate the speed talking. “The Murphys want you to _talk_ at the assembly?”

“Yes!”

“Okay… Well, does that _surprise_ you?” He’s really not sure what the panic’s about, considering the fact that he really should have seen this coming a million miles away.

“I ca-“ Evan makes a kind of dejected noise. “I don’t think I can do that.”

Jared leans back against his pillows and closes his eyes. His head’s hurting, so he takes his glasses off and lays them beside him. “You’re the president of The Connor Project. Of course they’re gonna expect you to speak.”

“Co-president.”

“Whatever, man. Obviously you have to say something.”

“Alana… Alana can just do it.”

“Alana wasn’t his best friend.”

“Neither was I!”

Jared purses his lips. Part of him wants to tell Evan that this serves him right, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just does his minimal best to be supportive. “Just write a speech, and I’ll tell you if it sucks.”

He really can’t imagine Evan standing up on the auditorium stage in front of the whole school. He especially can’t imagine him giving a _speech._ He’s still trying to recover from the second-hand embarrassment of the Daisy Buchanan disaster in junior English. This whole damn thing was Evan’s idea, though, so really, he doesn’t have _that_ much sympathy. He’s just glad no one expects _him_ to stand up and give a speech on Connor Murphy. 

Good thing he’s not the co-president of anything. Being treasurer has its perks.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own these characters.

He’s late to the assembly. Well, not _late_ , but he’s late for when _he’s_ supposed to be there. He’s supposed to be at the school by 9, and he doesn’t show up until closer to 9:30. Whatever, though. He’s there. It's Saturday, damn.

Alana gives him a disapproving look from her spot center stage. She’s wearing a headset and has a clipboard in her hand. She’s talking to someone in the headset and motioning at something in the back of the auditorium. Jared assumes she must be doing light checks or something, but she stops to shake her head at him. “You’re late.”

Well, duh. He may not be certified Mensa, but he does know how to read the time on his phone. “Still don’t have a car.” Sure, that works. It’s totally not the reason he’s late, but maybe she’ll leave him alone. 

She motions for him to join her, so he climbs the stage stairs and realizes immediately that this is the very first time he’s ever stood on this stage. He’s a senior. He’s been here _four_ years, and he’s never been on the auditorium stage. 

He looks out at all the empty seats and doesn’t really think he’s missing much.

“You’re in charge of backstage.” She walks off into the wings, and he assumes he’s supposed to follow her, so he does. It’s pretty junked up back here, boxes and chairs stacked up basically everywhere. He’s never been back here, either. Alana walks over to a table and picks up another headset. “You have to keep this turned on the whole time. I’m going to be all over the place, and this is the only way we can stay on the same page.”

“Where’s Evan?”

“I don’t know, Jared!” She is obviously _super_ close to the edge. He just blinks at her as she rants at him. “I can’t do everything by myself! That’s why I needed people here early to help! He’s… I don’t know where he went. Just… Just do something!”

“Okay! Jesus…” He shakes his head a little bit, but she just glares at him. He wonders why the hell she enjoys this stuff so much when it clearly just stresses her out. He can’t see what the draw is because this seems like a crap ton of work and stress that most likely isn’t going to have any real payoff. 

Alana takes an actual breath and seems to calm herself very slightly. “Just… go find Evan.”

Right. Go find Evan. The guest of honor. Sure. He’s kind of important for this whole shebang, so yeah, Jared can do that. He can… Go. Find. Evan.

He glances around backstage, and of course, he has no idea where anything is back here. He sees a door in the corner and goes to check it. There’s got to be dressing rooms or something back here, right? They have like… plays and stuff. So surely there are dressing rooms. When he gets to the door, though, all he can hear are a bunch of out of sync instruments, and he realizes that this door must lead to the band room. The jazz band must be in there warming up or something. He figures the chances of Evan being in there are very, very slim unless he’s suddenly decided to take his bed Zoe Murphy mission public.

But yeah, not a chance.

He pulls out his phone and sends a text, asking Evan where the hell he is. He waits about a minute, and when he doesn’t get a response, he just drops his phone back into his pocket and decides a foot search is in order. Okay, so search is kind of pushing it. He heads through the wings to the other side of the stage and actually finds what he assumes is a dressing room. No Evan. He jumps off the stage (lands on his feet, thankyouverymuch) and heads up through the aisles back to the lobby area. No Evan. He checks his phone again. No Evan.

He finally finds him in the bathroom that’s just down the hall from the auditorium. He pushes the door open and sticks his head in. “Evan?”

He gets a gasp in response.

Jared immediately glances behind him to make sure no one else is heading this way and then enters the bathroom. “Are you okay?” He’s talking to the handicap stall where he can just see the bottoms of Evan’s khakis and his sneakers. 

Evan doesn’t answer. He seems to be struggling to breathe, which… Yeah. Okay, so Evan’s having a panic attack in the men’s room an hour before they’re supposed to throw some huge memorial assembly for his fake best friend. 

Of fucking _course_ he is.

“Dude, open the door.” Jared pushes on the stall door, but it’s locked and goes nowhere.

There’s no answer. Evan also doesn’t make any move to open the door. Jared can hear him gasping for breath, and he chews on his lip and tries to push down his own panic. He’s seen panic attacks before. Seen _Evan’s_ panic attacks before. That doesn’t mean it makes it any easier to deal with.

“Seriously, Evan. It’s okay. Just open the door.” He tries to keep his own voice calm and even because he knows that’s what you’re supposed to do. 

“G-go…” Evan’s trying to tell him to go away, and a huge part of Jared just wants to obey and disappear because he’s not equipped to deal with this. He’s not going to do that, though. 

“Okay, I’m calling your mom.”

He’s totally not going to call Heidi, but he figures the threat of it might be enough to get Evan to at least open the door. It doesn’t, though. All it does is make Evan’s breathing get even quicker and shorter. And _fuck._

“For real, just open the fucking door!”

It’s not happening. Evan’s not going to open the door. Maybe he actually _can’t_ open the door. Like physically. Maybe he’s not able to. 

Jared hates himself a little bit when he gets on his fucking hands and knees and sticks his head under the stall door. 

“ _Seriously,_ dude?”

Evan has backed himself all the way into the corner beside the toilet, and he just looks at Jared all wide-eyed and panicked and shakes his head super rapidly while his breathing picks up even more. He’s gasping at air and red in the face, and if Jared didn’t know better, he’d start freaking out, too, thinking that Evan was having a damn heart attack or something. He does know better, though, That’s why he shimmies his way all the way under the door ( _nasty_ ) and stands up inside the stall. 

“Okay. Now I’m gonna kick your fucking ass.”

Evan’s got tears in his eyes. Actual damn tears. He can’t breathe and looks miserable, and he turns around and shoves his face into the corner because he’s obviously embarrassed or something. Jared just looks at him for a few seconds before he takes his own deep breath and walks the few steps over to where Evan is trying to disappear into the corner. 

“Evan…” He drops his voice and loses the annoyance. “Come on, man.” He tries to put a hand on his shoulder, but Evan freaking _flinches_. “Just sit down, okay.”

Somehow, miraculously, Evan actually lets Jared guide him out of the corner and over to the toilet. Normally, Jared wouldn’t condone these toilet seats for anything, but he’s half-afraid that Evan’s going to pass out if he doesn’t get off his feet. Evan sits down and immediately drops his head forward into his hands. He’s shaking all over and crying now, and Jared wonders if maybe he really _should_ call Heidi.

The first time he ever witnessed this is ingrained in his memory, probably forever. Evan was staying with them because Heidi had to go out of town for the weekend for some training thing or something. They were like seven maybe. He remembers it wasn’t very long after Evan’s dad left because Evan kept talking about it like _nonstop._ About how his dad was gone. And how he moved everything out. And how he hadn’t been back. But he called on the phone. And probably Evan was going to go visit him soon. Because that’s what his dad said so obviously it was going to happen. And he just kept rambling about it _all night_ until Jared’s mom finally made them go to bed. 

Jared was mostly asleep when he first heard what he thought was wheezing like sometimes happened to his Nana if she walked too far or something. But that was like just something that happened to old people. He didn’t know why the heck it was happening to Evan. He remembers rolling over and seeing Evan with his face pressed into the pillow, shaking and crying- pretty much just like he is right now. Jared was scared to death and tried to ask him what was wrong, but Evan just kept there struggling to breathe, crying, shaking on the other side of the bed… Jared just remembers jumping out of bed and running downstairs to his parents’ room, busting in, and yelling at them that Evan was _dying_.

He remembers chasing them back to his room and hearing his dad say the words “panic attack” and watching his mom pick Evan up and pull him into her lap. She just hugged him and tried to quietly tell him to breathe while his dad went to get him some water and call Heidi. Jared just stood there and watched the whole thing in horror because he’d never seen something that crazy happen in real life. 

He’s seen it more than a few times since then.

“Evan.” He puts another hand on his shoulder, carefully this time, and he’s grateful that Evan doesn’t flinch. “You’re okay… Just… breathe, okay?”

It sounds so stupid to him. He’s sure that Evan knows that he needs to fucking _breathe._ But he doesn’t know what else to say. Instead, he just stands there feeling awkward as fuck and also a little terrified. But he keeps his hand there on his shoulder and just tries not to freak himself out.

 _Finally,_ after what seems like hours but is probably just a couple of minutes, Evan’s breathing starts evening out some. He doesn’t lift his head, but Jared can feel his breathing slow down, and he stops shaking so much. The crying turns more into just sniffling. Finally, Jared thinks it’s safe to speak again.

“Are you okay?”

Evan shakes his head but doesn’t lift it. “I… I-I can’t…” His voice is quiet and raw, and it sounds like he’s having to make an intense effort to even form words. 

“You’re fine. Evan, look. No, for real, _look._ ” He pushes back against Evan’s shoulder and forces him to sit up. He looks like shit. His face is a deep red, and his eyes are still wet. Not only that, he looks terrified and miserable and embarrassed all at once. “You’re fine,” Jared repeats himself. 

Evan shakes his head again and then closes his eyes. “I can’t do this…”

“Yes, you can.” Jared’s not sure why he sounds so positive because he’s not at all positive that Evan can do this. In fact, he’s pretty sure Evan _can’t._ He’s pretty sure this is a terrible idea and that the right thing to do would be to tell Evan to fuck this and then run far away from the shit show this is about to turn into. But he hears himself just saying, “Your speech is great. You’re fine. You can do it.” 

“This is, this is a-all a mistake.”

Well, it’s a little late for that now. Of course it’s a mistake. This is all one big fucking lie! Jared doesn’t point this out for once.

“Think about Mrs. Murphy.”

He shouldn’t do that. He shouldn’t invoke Mrs. Murphy in all this. But the truth is, he hasn’t stopped thinking about her since that day they went over there. And even though he still thinks this whole thing is 97% fucked up, he can sort of understand Evan’s need to please her and make her happy. 

Evan just looks at him. Jared can tell that he _is_ thinking about Mrs. Murphy. Maybe he’s thinking about all the Murphys. That’s all he’s ever concerned with- just helping the Murphys. 

“You can do it for her, right?” Jared has no fucking clue where all this gentle, almost caring crap is coming from. But he just feels really, really shitty standing there watching Evan have a breakdown. 

Apparently Evan _can_ do it for her because he pushes out a little nod and wipes the back of his hand across his nose. He swallows and seems to be trying to chew his cheek from the inside out. 

“Okay.” Jared nods like he’s totally got everything all together. “Okay, we need to go back. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure Alana might come in here and beat us to death with her clipboard.”

…. … …

Jared can’t believe how many people show up to the assembly. 

He was expecting a pretty decent turnout just based on the fact that the school’s been pimping it nonstop all week. Plus, he knows that all of his classmates like to do stuff that makes them feel like they’re good people, and what better way to prove that than to show up for a memorial of your poor, dead classmate. 

What he didn’t expect, though, was for the event to turn into standing room only.

He peeks out from around the wing and sees every single seat in the auditorium filled. People are standing all across the back and down the sides, leaning against the wall or sitting cross legged on the floor. 

“I think we might have a fire code issue.” Alana’s voice in his ear makes him jump, and he adjusts the headset and wonders if she’s somehow programmed it to read his mind.

He doesn’t really know how to use this, but he presses the button on his battery pack and speaks into the mouthpiece. “Is this working?”

“Of course it is. Did you hear what I said about the fire code?”

He pulls his head back into the wing and rolls his eyes because he’s just about over her snappiness. “I’m pretty sure it’s the school’s problem if we do. Mr. Maclin’s here. He can obviously see how many people are here.”

He doesn’t get an immediate answer, but then Alana’s voice shocks him again. “Okay. You’re right. Are you ready to start?”

He doesn’t know what him being ready has to do with anything. He’s not doing anything except standing backstage and making sure that the speakers or performers get on at the right time. “Uh, I guess?”

That’s apparently all she needs because the next thing he knows, she’s walking out onto the stage from the other side. Her headset is gone, and she’s carrying a microphone. She’s all smiles without a trace of the bossy, panicked, hateful creature he’s seen all morning.

“Good morning. Thank you all so much for coming to the Connor Murphy Memorial Assembly. I’m Alana Beck, co-president of The Connor Project. If you haven’t done so yet, please follow us on Facebook and on Twitter. We’re a social network aimed at connecting people of all ages, races, genders, sexualities, and religions, a safe space for anyone who has ever felt alone or felt like there’s a connection missing in their life.”

She keeps rambling, and Jared’s pretty sure he might fall asleep. He definitely tunes her out. Instead, he keeps one eye trained on Evan, just to make sure he doesn’t try to bolt or anything. He’s sitting alone over by the table, and even though he’s calmed down some, he still looks a nervous wreck. He’s got a tie on that Jared’s never seen before, and he wonders if he bought it specifically for this. If so, that’s pretty dumb. Jared’s got like 50 ties that he never wears- he could totally have just borrowed one of those.

“Jazz band up!”

Jared jumps when Alana’s voice suddenly invades his ear again. He realizes that she’s finally shut up and has obviously exited stage right. Jared glances up to where the jazz band is standing huddled around in a corner. 

“Psst!” He hisses at them and then motions wordlessly for them to take the stage. There aren’t that many of them, so they thankfully don’t take that long to set themselves up and get ready.

Okay, here’s the thing. Jazz band is really fucking boring. Like for real. He has no interest in jazz or high school band music in general. It’s not that they’re _bad_ , but damn, they’re annoying. Evan, of course, suddenly seems interested in what’s happening on stage, and Jared rolls his eyes when he sees him standing up and craning his neck for a view. At least somebody’s interested… Jared totally spends the whole time playing Drop7.

Of course, that just means he’s jumping in shock again when Alana suddenly bursts in and tells him to get Evan ready.

Well, great. The jazz band is obviously finishing up, and Jared wishes they’d just keep playing. He walks over to where Evan is standing and tells him that he’s up next. What he gets in response are literal sweat beads that pop up all over Evan’s face. 

“I’m gonna mess up, I know I’m gonna mess everything up. And then, and then, and then Mrs. Murphy… She’s-“

“You’re going to be fine. You’ve got your notecards, right?”

Evan nods a little uncertainly and holds up the cards that he read through at least 10 times last night in Jared’s bedroom. The speech isn’t bad. The words aren’t anyway. Evan’s going to make a total disaster of it, but the right thought is there at least.

The jazz band starts coming back into the wings, and Jared watches Evan watch Zoe while Alana once again takes to the stage. 

“As many of you know, Connor’s sister, Zoe, was just on stage with the jazz band. We’re so honored to have her support today, along with the support of her parents who are in our audience. There are so many people who loved and cared about Connor, and we’re so grateful to everyone for showing their support. Next up, we’re going to hear from my co-president. He was Connor’s very best friend in the entire world, and he is very dedicated to preserving Connor’s memory and helping others who may be in the same position. Please welcome Evan Hansen.”

There’s a handful of random applause, like no one really knows if it’s appropriate to clap at a suicide victim’s memorial or something. Evan gives no indication that he’s going to move, so Jared not-so-gently shoves him until he half stumbles onto the stage. He straightens up quickly, blinking rapidly in the lights, and walks very pointedly to the microphone that’s set up in the middle of the stage. 

And then he says nothing.

There’s just weird awkward silence that drags on way too long until all of a sudden Evan finally decides to speak and bursts out with a signature choppy, breathless, ramble.

“Good morning, students and faculty. I just… would like to say a few words to you today a-about my best friend… Connor Murphy.”

His hands are shaking, and he can’t hold his cards steady. He keeps rambling, telling the orchard story. Jared just stands there and watches him, nervously popping his own fingers against his thigh. At one point, Evan starts stuttering pretty badly and glances off-stage, squinting frantically. Jared just looks at him with as much confidence as he can muster and nods encouragingly. “Just finish it,” he mumbles under his breath, desperately wanting this whole thing to just be over already.

“Good morning, students and facul…”

Shit. 

Evan’s frantically flipping his cards, trying to find his place. And then of course they all go scattering across the stage. He bends down, trying to put them back in order, but he just ends up on his knees, staring out at the audience and looking as fucking scared and pathetic as anything Jared’s ever seen in his entire life. He can’t watch this.

He turns around and walks further away from the stage and pushes the button to his headset. “Just cut the lights or something!” 

“No!” Alana’s voice hisses back at him, and he wonders if the audience can hear them. There’s nothing but silence coming from the stage. 

“Alana, this is fucked up! He’s having a fucking meltdown!”

“Have you ever felt… l-like nobody was there?”

Jared stops his rant when he hears Evan’s voice come back over the mic. He turns around and can see that he’s standing back up, tucking what he’s salvaged of the notecards back into his pocket. 

“Have you ever felt like you, like you were just forgotten? O-or like you could just disappear? Like if, like if you fell… nobody would hear?”

His voice drops off at the end. Jared doesn’t know what’s happening. This isn’t part of the speech. He has the damn thing memorized, and this is not it. He moves back to his spot in the wings and stares at Evan while he licks his lips nervously and glances in every direction.

“But see… But see, the thing is when I looked up… Connor was there. Th-that’s the gift he gave me. T-t-to show me that I wasn’t alone, th-that I matter. Umm…. Everybody does! That’s the gift, the gift he gave all of us. I just wish… I wish… I wish we could have given that to him.”

He’s tugging nervously on that tie, obviously trying not to cry because his eyes are watering and blinking a lot. Jared realizes his own breathing is a little uneven.

“So… so just… if you’ve ever felt lonely or alone. M-maybe there’s a reason to b-believe, to believe that you’ll be okay. Because even if you don’t feel like you’re, you’re strong enough to stand by yourself… You can just reach out.”

You could hear a pin drop. You can’t even hear anyone breathing. All those people, and everything’s just… silent. Everything except Evan. He just keeps going.

“S-somebody will be there for you. They’ll come, and they’ll find you. A-and even if you just, you just see darkness everywhere. Or you, you just really want a friend to be there with you. Or if… or if you’re just lying on the ground, and you just feel… you’re just _broken_ …” Evan squeezes his eyes closed for a second and then opens them. “You will be found.”

He keeps going. He doesn’t stop. He just keeps going, telling everyone how they’re not alone and how somebody will find them. And… _Wow._

Jared can see Alana on the other side of the stage. She’s standing at the edge of the wings, too, just staring and listening. He can barely see the people on the far wall of the auditorium. No one’s moving. No one’s talking. Everyone’s just like breathless and listening. And Evan’s just… Evan’s just _doing it._

And then, without even meaning to, Jared sees Zoe. The whole jazz band is standing in the wings, listening to Evan’s speech. They all look amazed, just like Jared is. But Zoe… Zoe’s just standing there. _Crying._ Silent tears are just falling down her cheeks, and she’s just standing there listening to Evan’s speech.

There’s no applause when he finishes. Not even the awkward uncertain kind from before. Nobody moves. The whole place is just drenched in heavy silence when he finally finishes his speech and stumbles off stage. He walks right toward Jared, digging his knuckles into his eyes and shaking all over again. He’s a freaking wreck, and Jared’s a little afraid that he might collapse or pass out or start having another damn panic attack right here in front of everyone.

“Dude…” He puts both hands on Evan’s shoulders and shakes him a tiny bit. “Oh, my god…”

He doesn’t get anything else out. The very next thing he knows, he’s getting knocked out of the way, and Zoe is there. She doesn’t say a word. She just immediately throws both arms around Evan’s neck and hugs him tightly. She’s still crying, and just stands there sobbing those weirdly silent tears into his shoulder. Evan looks terrified, but then he eventually hugs her back.

And Jared just stands there. Watching Zoe Murphy cry on Evan. While she clutches at him like her life depends on it. And he has both hands planted on her back. Hugging her. Hugging Zoe Murphy, the girl he’s been obsessed with for like three years…

And everything just kind of feels like the Twilight Zone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own these characters.

He wakes up to his phone buzzing.

He thinks he’s dreaming at first, or maybe he just really doesn’t want to wake up. But he manages to ignore it for a long time. It doesn’t stop, though. Just buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. It keeps going and going until he finally gives up. He sits up, super irritated because it’s Sunday, and it’s supposed to be the fucking day of rest or something. Yes, he’s aware that he’s very Jewish. Yes, he’s also willing to observe the fuck out of anything that gets him some kind of benefits. Like presents or a day off school. Or, in this case, a chance to sleep in. Jesus.

He realizes that he left his phone charging on his desk, so he has to get out of bed and walk all the way across the room to see what’s so damn important. If Evan’s having some kind of fucking nervous breakdown because he tried to assault Zoe Murphy again or something… He clenches his jaw just thinking about it.

When he picks up his phone, though, he sees that all the buzzing isn’t being caused by texts. It’s Twitter. Why the hell does he have 49 new Twitter notifications? He unlocks his phone and pulls up the app. While he’s opening it, two more notifications come through. What the fuck? He sees a crap ton of new followers and wonders what the hell is going on. Then he realizes that Alana’s tagged him in something about The Connor Project, and…

He clicks on The Connor Project’s Twitter account and almost drops his phone.

“Holy shit…”

He runs back over to his bed and grabs for his glasses to make sure he’s seeing this correctly. Newly perfected vision confirms. 3,408 followers. He checked their page early this morning when he was up just fucking around because he couldn’t sleep, and they had 56. Seriously. 56. To 3,408. What in the hell.

He pulls up the Facebook page and sees that the numbers are exploding there, too. He has no idea what happened. There were a lot of people at the assembly yesterday, sure, but there weren’t _three-thousand._ That’s insane. He scrolls down the Facebook page and immediately stops when he sees a video somebody shared. It’s a video of Evan. 

A video of Evan’s speech.

Jared’s stomach sinks because the first thing he thinks is that somebody shared the video to make fun of him. He imagines a video of Evan’s notecards scattering and imagines all these people sitting around laughing at how insane he looks. He imagines them making fun of his stutter. He even imagines some remixed song like that _hide yo kids, hide yo wife_ dude that went viral back when they were in middle school.

But it’s none of that. It’s just a straight up video of Evan giving his speech (the whole notecard thing not even included). Jared glances at the comment and share count, and _fuck._ What is even happening? 

He clicks on the comments and starts reading some of the _thousands_ of messages that have been left. 

_I really needed this today. Thank you, Evan Hansen._

_Connor was so lucky to have someone in his life who cared so much. This story is a tragedy, but your strength will help so many others, Evan._

_I relate to this so much on a personal level. Sometimes I don’t feel like I really belong, either, but this really makes me feel like I’m not alone._

There are a couple of rude comments, but for every rude person, there are at least twenty or thirty people shutting them down. What even _is_ this?

His phone just keeps buzzing every few seconds, and he just watches his Twitter notifications keep blowing up. This is insane. Like literally insane.

Evan’s not answering his calls or his texts, so he just asks his mom if he can use her car and then drives over there. He doesn’t bother showering, just grabs some clothes off the floor and throws them on. He does manage to brush his teeth because almost five years in braces kind of drills the importance of oral hygiene into your head.

He doesn’t know why the hell Evan’s not answering, but he knows he’s at home. He literally doesn’t go anywhere, so where else would he be? No sign of Heidi, of course, because apparently she doesn’t observe this holy day of rest like some people. He parks the car and gets out and bangs on the front door. He twists the knob, but it’s locked, so he bangs again.

After like three minutes of knocking, he finally hears someone on the other side. He can tell that he’s being spied on through the peephole, so he flips it off. “Hey, asshole, let me in.”

Evan can’t very well pretend that he’s not home now, so Jared waits while all three locks are undone ( _slowly_ ) before the door finally opens. Evan’s standing there looking like he literally just got out of bed and came to the door. He probably did. He rubs at his eye before he squints at Jared.

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Like ten or something.” Jared pushes his way inside without waiting to be asked. “Why the hell aren’t you answering your phone?”

Evan looks really confused and disoriented as he shuts the door. “I’m… Sleep.”

“So you haven’t been online?” Jared turns around once they get to the living room, and Evan just shakes his head, obviously really out of it.

“No. Why?”

Jared shakes his own head, still unable to believe it. “Your speech is _everywhere!_ ”

Jared watches the immediate panic set in on Evan’s face. He’s positive that he’s thinking of all the same things Jared did earlier. All those, plus probably a thousand more because Evan is super great at thinking up crazy worst case scenarios that no normal human being would ever imagine in a million years. 

“M-my speech?”

Jared works quickly to ward off any sudden panic attack because there’s no way he can deal with that twice in two days. “This morning, The Connor Project page only had fifty-six people following it!”

Evan still looks really confused. “Well, h-how many does it have now?”

Jared grabs his phone from his pocket and pulls up Twitter for the latest number. “Four-thousand five-hundred and eighty-two!”

Evan’s eyes go wide, and his face gets a little whiter. “F-f-four-thous…”

Jared just nods and shoves his phone over for proof. “Dude, it’s insane!”

“But where… I don’t, I-I don’t…” Evan’s staring at his phone screen in complete shock.

“Where’s your laptop?” 

Evan looks a little dazed, but he motions down the hall toward his room. Jared takes that as his cue and leads the way. Evan just follows him because he obviously has no fucking clue what is happening. 

Evan’s room still looks the same as it did ten years ago. Basically. Same bed, same paint, same lamp. His sheets have changed, and there are a couple fewer toys, but that’s literally about it. His computer is on the floor, and Jared grabs it before he flops down on the bed. As timid as Evan likes to be at Jared’s house, the feeling is not at all mutual. He pulls his legs up and crosses his ankles as he leans back and opens the computer. Evan still looks really confused and slightly uncomfortable, but he sits down on the very edge of the bed and looks over at whatever Jared’s doing.

He pulls up Facebook, and Evan’s already logged in. He’s got hundreds of notifications, and Jared watches as his eyes go wide again when he reaches over to take the laptop to see for himself. Jared just watches as Evan scrolls through the notifications. His phone is buzzing away on his nightstand at the same time, and he reaches for it blindly as he keeps scrolling through Facebook. Evan glances at it and then makes a face before he gives it his attention for a few seconds.

“What’s wrong?” 

Evan just frowns and shakes his head. “Just… my dad.”

Jared’s confused. Evan rarely mentions his dad anymore, so it’s pretty weird for him to just randomly bring it up. “Is something wrong?”

“No, he just… My step…” Evan sighs and just shakes his head. 

He doesn’t finish his thought. Instead, he just starts searching something on Facebook and brings up a page that just makes him frown again. Jared looks at the screen, and he sees that Evan’s on a woman’s page. Carly Hansen. Jared knows that this is his stepmother even though he’s never personally met her or anything. He knows her name and can tell by the way Evan’s face looks that he isn’t too happy.

 _This is my stepson. He’s such a blessing to our family! We are so proud of him!!!_

She’s shared the video of the speech and also a picture of Evan from about five years ago with two really little toddlers. 

“Is that your brother and sister?” Jared knows they exist, of course, but he’s never actually seen them. Or if he has, he’s never paid attention.

Evan nods and pops his knuckles against his thigh. “Yeah. Yeah, Camden and C-Cadence.” 

Camden and Cadence. Of fucking course they are.

“What? Is that like the last time you saw them?” Jared laughs because he’s mostly joking, but Evan just nods because apparently he’s not.

“The only time…”

Jared stops laughing because he really didn’t know that. He’s not generally around in the summers that much, and since he normally has very little interest in whatever anyone else is doing, it’s never really crossed his mind that Evan doesn’t visit his dad regularly. He doesn’t really know why he thought he did- just assumed that there was some kind of agreement or something that said he had to.

“Well, your stepmom’s kind of hot…”

Evan’s head snaps up, and he glares at him. Jared just laughs, trying to break the weird tension.

“I’m just kidding, dude. Chill.” Evan doesn’t look too happy, but he at least doesn’t look as panicked/murderous. 

But no, seriously. She actually is kind of hot. So is Evan’s actual mom, but Jared would never, ever in a million years _ever_ say that out loud. Not even joking. It’s too weird. Gross. 

“Why would she…” Evan’s frowning, staring at the post and reading all of her friends’ comments. “She doesn’t…” 

“Because you’re famous!” Jared laughs again and shakes his head because even though _famous_ might be stretching it, thousands of people know who he is. Like literally overnight. “Of course she’s gonna wanna cash in on that.”

Evan just seems like he’s in a daze. He clicks off of his stepmom’s page and goes back to the The Connor Project. He’s skimming comments and messages, and he just seems totally in awe. Jared doesn’t blame him obviously. It’s pretty fucking unbelievable.

A call notification pops up, and Jared barely sees it before Alana’s face is opening on the screen. Of course it is.

“Evan! Did you see? Someone put a copy of your speech online!” She seems super excited and also kind of disbelieving herself. “People started sharing it, I guess, and…”

Evan just nods and rubs at his neck. “Y-yeah… I don’t… I don’t know what h-happened…”

“You’re trending on Twitter!”

 _”What?!”_ Jared decides to interject and leans his head over to be seen in the camera view.

“Oh.” Alana looks surprised. “Hi, Jared.”

“What do you meant he’s _trending?_ ”

“It means that a lot of people are posting about-“

“I know what the fuck trending means, Alana!” She looks confused, and he rolls his eyes. “Are you being serious?”

“Well, the speech is trending. Everyone’s hashtagging ‘you will be found.’ Go look.”

Jared’s already beating her, pulling Twitter back up on his phone for the hundredth time today. He checks out the main page, and…

“Holy fucking shit.”

Evan’s obviously been alerted to the conversation taking place around him because he actually grabs Jared’s phone and sees for himself. It’s right there on the screen.

#YouWillBeFound

What. The. Actual. Crap.

“The Connor Project is blowing up. We have so many new followers! I’ve been answering messages all morning.”

“This… This is crazy.” Evan’s shaking his head, looking up from the phone with this super strange expression.

“I have so many ideas. With this much attention, do you even know how much we can accomplish?!” Alana’s all bright smiles and eager beaver, and Jared wants to tell her to calm the hell down, but he can’t. He’s too shocked himself.

Evan just kind of nods, though, and swallows a few times. “Yeah. Yeah, okay…”

“I’ll call you this afternoon. I have to go to church now, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Evan nods again and kind of half-waves before she flashes one last smile and ends the call. Jared just sits there staring at his phone in Evan’s hand, and neither one of them says anything for a really long minute. Surprisingly, it’s Evan who finally breaks the silence.

“Is- do you think… Is this okay?”

He sounds really worried about something, and Jared has no clue what he’s talking about. He just gives him a look and says, “Is what okay?”

“All of this… I-I mean, Connor… Connor and I weren’t even friends, and now it’s like, it’s like everyone thinks… Like I mean, I don’t know. I just… Do you think it’s okay?”

Oh. Does he think lying about being a suicide victim’s best friend is okay? Well, absolutely fucking not. But in Jared’s defense, he’s said that from the beginning. And anyway. Obviously people are into it. _Obviously._ Whether it’s true or not. 

So it can’t really be _bad_ if it’s helping people and people like it, right?

He doesn’t say anything of that. He just takes his phone back and checks out his new follow numbers. “Too late for that now, bro. It is what it is at this point. You just gotta go with it.”

… … …

His mom brings it up later that afternoon when he’s in his room stalking the #YouWillBeFound hashtag. She knocks and pushes open the door without waiting to be invited. She likes to do that a lot, and he’s not sure why. For her own safety and sanity, she should _definitely_ wait to be invited in. He’s not sure what she’s always hoping to catch him doing, but he’s pretty sure a lot of what she might find would scar her for life. 

It would sure as hell scar him.

He shuts his laptop on instinct because that’s always his first reaction to seeing his mother. She watches him but, for once, doesn’t seem pissed off or irritated at him. Instead, she just leans against his doorframe and pushes some hair behind her ears. 

“I saw your club on Facebook. It’s really taking off, huh?”

“It’s not a _club._ ” He rolls his eyes. 

She rolls her own eyes. “Well, whatever it is. It seems like a ton of people are following it.”

A ton. Yeah. Thirteen-thousand the last time he checked. 

“Did you see Evan?”

“Yes!” She gets some weirdly prideful look on her face and says, “I can’t believe he gave such an amazing speech!” 

No kidding. He mutters, “You and me both.”

“I don’t know how he did it. He must be making really amazing strides with his therapy and everything.”

It sounds odd to hear her say something like that. To like _acknowledge_ the fact that Evan’s not totally normal or whatever. It seems like she always goes out of her way to purposely ignore all the ticks and stuff that Evan’s anxiety causes. 

One time, when Jared was like eight or nine, he got in _so much_ trouble because she overheard him tell some kids at temple that Evan was a freak. And even though Evan didn’t even hear him (probably), his mom was still super pissed. And she laid into him right there in front of the other kids, embarrassing the crap out of him before she dragged (no, seriously- _dragged_ ) him to the car and let him have it all over again. Because apparently, there was absolutely nothing in the world worse than telling the truth and calling a spade a spade. Maybe his mom didn’t realize it because she didn’t have to be in the same class as Evan and see him try and fail in every possible way to be even remotely normal. She didn’t have to do her best to pretend like she barely knew him in public because it was either that or let people assume they were friends and then risk everyone in school treat him the exact same way they treated Evan. Which wasn’t great, by the way. 

Jared had enough of his own shit. He didn’t need Evan’s, too.

And whatever. Maybe he was ( _is_ ) kind of a dick sometimes. But being a kid is like survival of the fittest. And Jared’s never been the fittest at anything really.

That’s why he’s surprised to hear her say that she’s shocked Evan was able to give a speech or mention his therapy. He’s never heard her acknowledge any of Evan’s oddities before, and he’s used to getting in trouble for stating the obvious. He could point this out and make her feel guilty for all the times she’s yelled at him for being honest- especially for that one time because _Jesus,_ she lost her fucking mind- but he’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

“I didn’t even know he was friends with that boy. That’s just so sad…” She frowns like she’s thinking about the tragedy of it all, and Jared wonders what she’d say if he was like… _lol jk Evan’s just a big fucking liar, this is all a hoax!_

He’s smart enough to not say _that_ , either.

“Did you know him?”

“Who? Connor?” She nods, and he just shrugs, wondering what he’s supposed to say. Like _yeah, of course, he’s that kid who threw the printer in second grade._ Instead, he just says, “Kind of. Through Evan.”

He figures that’s safe enough. 

“Well, I think what you guys are doing is really great.” She smiles at him. “Seriously, I’m really proud of you.”

Jared blinks because he’s not used to actually hearing those words. It’s not like he _really_ thinks his parents hate him or whatever. He knows they don’t. Sometimes it might feel that way because he’s used to them being on his ass about every little thing. But he knows that they don’t hold _actual_ animosity against him. Still, he doesn’t really remember the last time he heard anyone- his parents or otherwise- say they were _proud_ of him.

To hear it about The Connor Project kind of makes his stomach lurch.

“It’s not that big of a deal…” 

“It is. This is something really great. The reactions that people are having online… You guys are doing something important.”

If she wants to be proud of something, he’s got a calculus test with a bright red 98 at the top in his backpack. Being proud of _this?_ It feels kind of gross…

“Jared.” She says his name and then stops. She looks weird, like she’s trying to choose her words carefully. He glances around his room and wonders if she’s about to comment on how messy it is. She doesn’t mention it, though. She just frowns and swallows and starts again. “You know you can talk to us, right?”

“What?”

She lets out a little breath like she doesn’t really know what she wants to say. “You can talk to us. If you ever feel…” 

She breaks off because she clearly isn’t getting her thoughts out. Every time she hesitates, Jared feels more worried about she’s actually trying to say. If she’s trying to give him the sex talk or something, he _definitely_ has some place else he needs to be.

“If you ever feel the way Connor did.” She finally gets it out, and Jared just stares at her. “You can talk to us. Me, your dad. Both of us. Just…” She shakes her head, still frowning. “Just don’t ever do that, okay?”

“Mom!” He literally _gapes_ at her because… WTF. “Why would you think I would ever do something like that?”

Seriously. What the hell?

“I don’t think that.” She just seems really serious and actually kind of upset. “I just… His parents probably didn’t think that, either. I just want you to know that doing something like that… _Suicide_ is never the answer.”

He pulls himself into a sitting position because he needs to squash this. “Okay, first of all, I’m not suicidal. Like _at all_. And you should know that.” If he sounds offended, that’s because he is.

“I’m not trying to make you mad. I’m just letting you know that you can always talk to us. About anything.” She pulls some hair away from her neck and twists her lips a little bit.

“Why do you think I’d ever do something like that?” He really wants to know.

“I _don’t._ ” She seems frustrated, but guess what. So is he. Like a lot. “I just know that life can be really tough sometimes. Especially in high school.”

“So, what?” He makes a face and lifts his hand in question. “You think my life sucks so bad or something? Like I’m that much of a pathetic loser that I’d go fucking kill myself because sometimes high school is _tough?_ ”

 _“Jared!”_ She just kind of stares at him for a second, and he wonders if she’s about to flip on him. He almost wishes she would. It would at least feel more normal than this. “Stop twisting my words. I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying, Mom?! I already told you that I’m not suicidal! Can we _please_ stop talking about this?”

Her eyes are a little wide, but she forces a nod. He can tell by her face that she’s a little freaked out by _his_ freakout, but damn, he just really, really doesn’t want to talk about this. He feels sort of bad, so he takes a short breath and lowers his voice.

“I’m fine,” he says calmly. “I promise. Please don’t worry about me. I wouldn’t do that.”

She nods again, and he totally doesn’t miss the way she swipes at the corner of her eye. Fuck.

 _”Mom.”_ He looks at her half-desperately. “Seriously.”

“I really am proud of you.” She just looks at him, and if he felt gross about it before, he feels downright sick now.

“Mom.”

She ignores his one word plea to just stop. “And I’m really glad you’re being so nice to Evan. He really needs a friend right now.”

Oh, sure. Right. Evan. Okay. Does he _really_ need friends when he’s so good at just inventing ones in his head? 

Jared doesn’t say any of this. 

He does end up reopening his laptop and clicking on the speech after his mom finally leaves him alone. It’s only the tenth or twentieth time he’s watched it today. He’s kind of annoyed at the way the words won’t leave him alone. Especially since he knows the truth behind everything. He doesn’t know why he keeps watching.

_Literally sobbing right now. Never heard anything that hit so close to home._

_I just want to give him a hug. Or I just want someone to hug **me**! We should all just hug each other!_

_I’ve been struggling with a lot of stuff lately, but hearing this makes me feel like I can get through it all. I’m here if anyone needs to talk._

New comments are coming in all the time. From all over the country. Shit, it’s even starting to go international. Jared reads them and really doesn’t know what to feel. On one hand, he should possibly feel guilty, knowing that The Connor Project itself is built on a lie. On the other hand… He hates how much he relates to some of these comments.

He’s not suicidal. At all. He wasn’t lying to his mom. The most he’s ever even thought about it would be in some random, passing hypothetical situation, and even that’s stretching it. Because randomly thinking about it and actually wanting to do it are two very different things. He doesn’t want to kill himself. He doesn’t want to hurt himself. He’s never had any serious urge to do either one of those things. At all.

But that doesn’t mean he’s totally happy and thinks life is great and just wakes up every day excited and thrilled to be here. He’s not always thrilled to be here. Sometimes he does just wish that he could disappear because sometimes life really does suck ass. Not every day. But a lot of days. 

School fucking sucks sometimes. Most of the time actually. He spends every day just watching the clock and waiting for it to end because he doesn’t love being there. People are assholes to each other. Hell, sometimes _he’s_ an asshole. But he gets through it because he understands that this shit isn’t forever. Maybe college and real life will suck, too, but he’s willing to at least stick around and give them a chance. 

That’s why he’s had a really hard time understanding all this crap. He really hasn’t even felt sorry for Connor, even though he knows that’s what he’s supposed to feel. But mostly he’s just thought of the whole thing as really selfish and dramatic. He kind of feels like he’s getting kicked in the face reading how many people have been tempted or even tried to do exactly what Connor did- people who are still here and who can explain their feelings and make it seem a lot more real. These people don’t just sound selfish or dramatic- they sound _miserable._ Miserable and desperate and exhausted and just out of anything they see as an option.

And Jared realizes that he can’t really judge that…

No, he isn’t suicidal, but he’s felt just like these people before. He understands why they feel like that and knows how bad your own damn head can make you feel. He _gets_ that. He’s just lucky that his head is also able to focus on something besides the present. Some people can’t do that. Or maybe they can, but their heads block any possibility of something better. Maybe that’s where Connor was at. He really has no idea. He didn’t know Connor. Twelve years of school together, and he didn’t know him at all.

One girl’s comment jumps out at Jared and makes him wince because he relates a little too closely.

_Sometimes I feel like I’m standing in the middle of an empty room screaming at the top of my lungs, but no sound is coming out because there’s nobody around to hear it. Because there’s never anyone around. And nobody ever hears me._

Jared feels like that a lot. Like every day at school when he’s just doing his best to blend in to the background and avoid being noticed. He normally only speaks to a few people all day long, but he doesn’t really ever think they actually hear him. The only people who talk to him are either the people who talk to _everybody_ (Alana) or the people who talk to _nobody_ (Evan). Neither one of those types are the best at listening or hearing. He should know. He doesn’t always hear other people when they talk, either.

Without thinking twice about it (because he’ll totally think himself right out of it), he replies to the girl. 

_Lots of people feel like that. You should visit our blog. There are a lot of people who want to listen. Just say the word, and I promise people will hear you._

He closes his laptop after that because he knows that if he rereads his reply, he’ll just end up deleting it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of these characters.

Things go from crazy to batshit super fast.

On Monday, Jared hears several people talking about The Connor Project. A few even talk to _him_ about it. 

By Tuesday, it’s all _anybody_ is talking about. 

Literally everybody is talking about Connor and Evan’s speech and The Connor Project and… it’s just crazy. Like seriously fucking crazy. People who have never even looked at him suddenly want to talk to him about the project and where it’s going and what plans they have. And it’s just nuts. Jared is still positive that the vast, vast majority of these people do not give a shit about Connor, but now that their school is semi-Internet famous, everyone wants a part of it.

Alana won’t leave him alone and seriously texts him all morning, which is surprising really because he didn’t necessarily peg her as the texting during class type of person. She’s got him in a group text with Evan and then a separate individual text and, he assumes, probably an individual text with Evan, too. Apparently she’s not at all concerned with learning anything today because there’s absolutely no way she’s paying attention in whatever AP class she’s currently holed up in. 

He gets away with vague one word answers all the way up til study hall when, of course, she assaults him the second he walks in the door. She actually grabs his arm and drags him over to a table where she’s already got her stuff laid out. He sits down in the chair she basically shoves him into. He opens his mouth to tell her she’s crazy, but she cuts him off.

“I have the best idea for The Connor Project! It’s too much to text. Can I come to your house after school?”

Jared just blinks at her. Because… what?

She either reads his face or at least has enough social normalcy to know that you don’t just invite yourself to people’s houses because she says, “We could go to mine, but my parents are taking a French class on Tuesdays and Thursdays now, and I’m not supposed to have people over when they aren’t home.”

Jared’s mostly just caught off-guard, so he feels himself nodding before he can really stop it. “Uh… okay?”

She obviously doesn’t hear the question in his tone because she’s all smiles when she sits down beside him. “Great! I’ll text Evan.”

She pulls her phone out and starts texting away. Jared feels his own phone buzz a second later,, and he rolls his eyes when he glances at it. “This really doesn’t need to go on group. I’m literally here.”

She ignores him, just types another message inviting (ordering) Evan over to Jared’s house after school. It occurs to Jared that he should at least give his parents a head’s up if he’s going to be having people over. People who aren’t Evan anyway. It turns out that his mother apparently doesn’t care because she literally texts back _k_ when he texts her.

He was half-hoping that she’d say no.

“We officially have twenty-thousand followers!” Alana’s moved on from text to Twitter, and he wonders if how her phone’s battery possibly lasts that long because he knows she’s been on it nonstop all day. Still, he leans over to see her screen, and she’s not lying.

20,019 followers.

Insanity.

“So are you going to tell me about the idea or what?” 

She adjusts her glasses and nods. “Yes. I will. _But_ it’s kind of a lot, and I’d really like to tell you and Evan together.”

“Okay…” 

He makes a real effort to not roll his eyes. Instead, he just pulls his backpack onto the table and reaches into it for a book. What book? He really doesn’t care. He just needs to have something to do because there’s no way he’s going to make it through a whole hour of Alana right now. 

He’s decided she’s officially harder to handle than Evan. 

And really, that’s a lot.

At least if he tells Evan to stop talking, he usually does it. Alana seems like the type of person who literally could not stop talking if her life depended on it. 

They have lunch after study hall, and Jared manages to lose Alana because he says he has to pee. He doesn’t, but he ducks into the bathroom anyway because he’s at least _pretty_ sure that she won’t actually follow him to the urinal. He can’t guarantee that she won’t be waiting outside, but he’ll take the chance.

After he takes as much time as possible washing his hands (can’t take too long because that’s just weird), he finally decides to head to the cafeteria. Alana’s nowhere in his immediate sightline, so that’s a good thing. He does spot Evan, though. He’s standing outside and looks like he’s literally trying to hide between the vending machines outside the cafeteria. He’s got his head ducked over his phone, and he actually jumps when Jared says his name.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Evan looks around and then shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Why are you hiding between Shitty Food Choice Number 1 and Shitty Food Choice Number 2?” To be fair, if Evan really is trying to hide, this is a pretty good spot. Nobody touches these machines.

“I-I’m not?”

“Okay.” Jared rolls his eyes. Just doesn’t have time for this right now. Or at least doesn’t have the patience. “Are you going to lunch or what?”

Evan doesn’t answer because they get distracted by three girls who walk by and wave at them. Or wave at Evan at least. And Jared just shakes his head as they disappear.

“So how many people want to be your new BFF now that your old one is tragically deceased?” 

Evan looks pale and kind of sick. 

They do end up actually making it inside the cafeteria. Evan sits down, and Jared goes through the line even though he’s really not that hungry. He pays for his food and takes his tray over to the table he’s been sharing with Evan for most of the schoolyear. Evan’s still staring at his phone, and Jared totally gets the feeling that he’s just trying to stop people from talking to him. Or maybe Alana’s blowing him up. Or maybe he’s just staring at his 20,000 new Internet friends. Whatever.

“Do you want any of this?” It’s the nasty nuggets, and seriously? Why did he even waste his mom’s money on this crap?

Evan shakes his head and then seems to remember that eating is a necessary part of existence because he reaches out and picks up a single nugget. Then he takes the smallest bite possible and chews it for a ridiculous amount of time. 

Jared’s just about to say something, probably compare him to a hamster or something, but he gets interrupted when someone joins them at their table. Not Alana. Another girl. 

Zoe Murphy.

That’s new.

“Can I sit here?” she asks after she’s already sitting down in the empty seat beside Evan. Evan just kind of looks even paler than before, but he manages a nod. Zoe smiles at him and then looks across the table and says, “Hey, Jared.” And she actually doesn’t sound like she not-so-secretly wants to murder him for once. It’s not exactly _friendly,_ but it’s definitely the closest she’s ever gotten.

He just says, “Hey,” back because… well, what else is he going to say?

“Did you guys see how many followers the Twitter page now? Alana texted me. That’s crazy!” Zoe talks while she struggles with her milk carton, and really, Jared feels that on a personal level, but he doesn’t offer to help. “Somebody from _Indonesia_ DMed me this morning. I can’t believe how far it’s spreading.”

Jared can clearly see how The Connor Project is just going to turn into one giant production with Evan as the lead and Zoe and Alana both fighting for the spot beside him. He, Jared, is obviously in the background, which is mostly fine. He doesn’t want to like be expected to give speeches or anything, but the attention is kind of nice. Even though it’s obviously still pretty fucked up in general…

He sits there eating those gross chicken nuggets and just watching Zoe babble on about more stuff, and he wonders what the hell she’s doing here. Like seriously. She didn’t just pop in to say hi. She’s got her tray and seems to literally be _sitting_ here. With them. 

Which has _never_ happened.

It’s not like Zoe is super popular. He remembers back in like middle school that people used to give her a lot of shit about Connor. Because middle school was the _worst_. For everybody probably, but especially for Connor. He wasn’t tall and intimidating enough to make people scared of him yet. He was just small and kind of scrawny and definitely super weird, like the epitome of an easy target because if you caught him on the right day, he’d actually fucking _react_ , which is just what every bully ever lives for, right? And Zoe got pulled into all that shit just because she was born or something. People would say stuff to her or give her crap, and Jared doesn’t actually know that much because he never actually _spoke_ to her until a few weeks ago. He wasn’t one of the people giving her shit in middle school, but he does remember it happening.

He doesn’t think people really give her shit anymore. Like he doesn’t think she gets actually gets _bullied_ or anything. But she’s not _popular._ He knows this because while he hasn’t actually been speaking to her all this time, he’s always been aware of her existence, thanks very much to Evan whose Zoe Murphy obsession started all the way back in tenth grade when they had geometry together because apparently the year after they left middle school was the year they started letting eighth graders test out of Algebra I. Which was just _not_ fair at all because Mrs. Hasten is a total bitch, and if Jared had to suffer through her, so should everyone else, but okay, so not the point. 

Anyway. Geometry. Zoe Murphy obsession. Yes.

Evan started talking about her one day when they were both standing in the rain soaking wet waiting on their buses. It was obvious from the very start that things were bad and likely just going to get worse, which they did. Talking about her turned into stalking her on social media. And within a month, Evan was full-blown obsessed. So yeah, Jared’s kind of been aware of her presence even if he hasn’t actively been socializing with her.

Zoe is very average. Not that that’s a bad thing. Average is actually a pretty good thing to be in high school. She’s average attractive- nothing sticks out about her as too ugly or too pretty. She’s got an average demeanor- nothing too weird but nothing spectacular. He doesn’t know much about her intelligence, but that probably means she’s got average grades, too. Average is a good thing. Easy to float by. To fit in. She’s nowhere near the top of the social ladder, but she’s not at the bottom, either.

She doesn’t get picked on anymore, at least as far as he can tell. Not like in middle school or whatever. But she’s definitely not popular, either. She’s in band. And then like… _extra band._ So that kind of automatically kills her chance at popularity right there. But it also gives her those built in band friends that high school is notorious for. So she does have friends. It’s just that her friends aren’t exactly popular, either. 

He wonders what her friends think about her ditching them for Evan Hansen.

Jared’s mostly zoned out to whatever she’s saying, and he’s really just watching Evan because he’s hanging onto every word that’s coming out of her mouth. He wants to tell him to calm the fuck down, but he can’t exactly do that when she’s sitting right fucking there. 

Zoe finally gets her milk open and turns all the way to Evan, addressing him directly with actual eye contact and everything. “My mom wants to know if you can come over tonight. Full disclosure, I don’t know what she’s making, but I’m sure it’s gross.”

And Evan just nods too much and stammers, “Y-yeah. Yeah, that’s… Yeah, I can do that.”

“You’re supposed to come over to my house.” Jared cuts right in because no.

Evan just glances at him, “Huh?”

“Alana texted you. You said okay.” Jared knows because it was on group.

“Oh, right.” Evan frowns for a second. “Well, you guys, maybe you can just, you know, maybe you can just fill me in later?”

No. Absolutely not. “You can’t leave me alone with Alana!”

Zoe butts in then, raising an eyebrow. “Why? Do you have a crush on her?”

Jared just stares at her because… where did she even _come_ from? “Are you serious?”

“Or have you just never been alone with a girl before, so you’re scared?”

Jared just looks at her, and she just smiles in this way that’s really a smirk. And okay, he can appreciate that. Slightly. 

He pops a fry in his mouth. “You know, you’re kind of a bully.”

“Really?” She sets her fork down and tilts her head. “I’m sorry, but didn’t I hear you call my brother a school shooter the same day he killed himself?”

Well, okay then. But no.

“I said he _looked_ like a school shooter, not that he _was_ a school shooter. It’s a totally different thing. And it was a joke.”

Zoe rolls her eyes and picks her fork back up. “Well, it was _super_ funny.”

Jared glances at Evan to see if he’s going to control his woman, but of course he’s just sitting there staring at the table and obviously trying to make himself disappear. Whatever. This is dumb.

“Are you coming to my house or not?” He says it very pointedly, and Evan has no choice but to look up and answer him.

“Umm…” He swallows and then looks at Zoe. “When’s dinner?”

She shrugs. “Like six or something.”

“Then… Then I can come after,” he says quickly. “We’ll just, just, we’ll just tell Alana. To p-push it back a little bit.”

Jared rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Text me.”

He gets up with his tray, totally done with this lunch period. He’ll go back to the bathroom and wash his hands for an obscenely long time or something. He’ll leave these two wannabe love birds alone because gross.

… … … 

Alana’s obviously annoyed that Jared doesn’t give a shit about what she’s saying, but he’s too busy texting Evan asking him where the hell he is. It’s way past dinner, and he’s supposed to be here. This is his thing. He should be the one here listening to Alana and all her ideas about an orchard.

A. Motherfucking. Orchard.

The Connor Murphy Memorial Orchard. Because Connor, apparently, was obsessed with trees. And the Autumn Smiles Orchard was his favorite place in the entire world.

It definitely _wasn’t_. But okay.

Jared is super glad his mom’s in the middle of some big sale because she barely even popped her head out of the office when Alana arrived. The last thing he needs or wants right now is her hovering because this is weird enough as it is. Because _yes,_ okay. Alana actually _is_ the first girl who has ever been to his house, and he doesn’t need his mom making it into something it’s not.

So they’re at his kitchen table (because there’s no way in hell he’s letting her in his bedroom), and she’s got her laptop out and is showing him all kinds of spreadsheets and information. And she seems a little annoyed, too, that Evan hasn’t shown up and isn’t answering his phone, but she’s here and seems determined to present her… whatever the hell this is.

See. Now Jared’s gonna have to kick Evan’s ass because not only has he _left him alone with Alana,_ but he’s also left him to have to pretend like the orchard actually makes sense and isn’t total and complete BS. Jared obviously can’t tell Alana this, so he just has to sit there and look at all her Excel spreadsheets and pretend like there’s nothing at all crazy about this. 

“Based on all my information, I think a $50,000 goal is a good starting place. That should cover the startup expenses. But we will need to figure out a long-term plan for upkeep and maintenance. You’ll be in charge of all the finances, of course. As treasurer.”

Right. Treasurer. Okay.

Jared nods slowly, kind of overwhelmed by the massive amount of numbers and other shit that’s currently floating in front of him on a Macbook. $50K is insane. Like literally insane. There’s no way they can raise that kind of money, and even if they could… 

$50,000.

“Do you, uh, want a soda or something?” He realizes very quickly that he’s actually _not_ that great of a liar. At least not about this. This feels a little too… much.

“I don’t drink caffeine after 5 PM. But if you have anything without caffeine, that’d be great.” She flashes him one of those wide smiles, and he gets up to see what they have because he needs any excuse to get away her plans.

The fridge gives him that excuse, and he spends as much time as he can staring at the shelves and waiting for better options to appear. They don’t.

“All we have is Coke and Diet Coke.” He leans back from the fridge and calls toward the general direction of the table. “Do you want a water?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks.” 

He grabs a bottle and a Coke for himself, and when he carries them back to the table, he half-prepares himself for some lecture about how bottled water is bad for the environment or something. He doesn’t get it, though. Alana takes the bottle and keeps her head bent over the computer, typing away at some Facebook message. She’s got her super serious face on, and he really doesn’t even want to ask what she’s doing.

To be perfectly honest, The Connor Project is exhausting him. It’s not even that he’s got to do a ton for it or anything. It’s just that everyone is taking it so seriously, and he just keeps reading all the messages and the notes, and it’s just a lot. He feels like he could get totally wrapped up in it if he really let himself, but he doesn’t. Or at least he’s trying not. He’s trying to be a halfway decent person because the stuff that all those strangers on the Internet say? He gets that stuff. A lot of it anyway. But then there’s a lot of stuff that’s super deep, unsettling… Just basically stuff that he _can’t_ relate to, and it makes him uncomfortable. Yes, he’s definitely aware that he could use the stuff that makes him uncomfortable to educate himself on some things, but it’s just fucking _exhausting._

He doesn’t post anything on the blog or on the Twitter account or the Facebook page. If someone sends him a Direct Message, he usually answers, but he doesn’t volunteer information. Like he told that one girl to read the blog, but that’s as far as he’s gone. He doesn’t feel right talking about this stuff. Partly because of the lie, but mostly because he thinks a lot of those people could benefit from real professional help, and he doesn’t know any kind of polite way to say that. So he just stays out of it for the most part.

His job is just to deal with the money. All fifty-thousand dollars of it. Awesome.

While Alana types whatever the hell it is that she’s typing, Jared pulls his phone out and texts Evan once again.

_Where tf are you?_

He doesn’t get an answer. He hasn’t all night, and he’s really starting to get kind of pissed off. It’s fucking rude. 

Alana finally looks up. “He’s still not answering?”

Jared shakes his head and pockets his phone. “Guess he’s too busy helping the Murphys.”  
Alana looks at him kind of strangely, and he realizes that must sound weird. He totally means it in a sarcastic way, but he can’t really let on about that, so he covers it up. “Mrs. Murphy. She really likes him.”

And Alana nods, smiling a little bit. “I’m sure she does. He probably reminds her of Connor.”

“Yeah.” He shuts his mouth after that because he doesn’t trust himself not to give too much away.

Alana leaves around nine, which Jared thinks is pretty late. She just sticks around talking to him, even after she’s said as much as she can about the orchard. They talk about school, and she asks him what he’s planning to do next year. He doesn’t have a great answer, considering the fact that he still hasn’t made that list of colleges he told himself he was going to start a month ago. Alana, of course, has already applied to ten different schools for early admission and has her entire future planned out. He’s just not that motivated. She tells him that she’s _happy_ to help if he needs anyone to look over his applications or essays, and he just nods because WTF else is he going to say? He’s not going to let her look over his applications. Why would he do that?

When she finally leaves, he goes up to his room to play video games. He needs something to do that requires no thinking and has nothing to do with suicide or trees. So it’s either play video games or eat a shit ton of Easy Cheese, and he figures his stomach would probably appreciate it if he chose the games.

He’s maybe ten minutes into it when he hears his mom screaming at him from downstairs. “Jared!”

Shit. What the hell did he do now?

“What?”

“Evan!”

That’s all she says. He sits there waiting for her to yell something else, but she doesn’t. WTF? Jared pauses the game and gets up because apparently he’s not going to get an answer without actually going downstairs and seeing what the hell she’s talking about. 

He really should have just stayed upstairs.

Evan’s standing down there alone in the living room, and he looks kind of relieved when Jared shows up. He shouldn’t. Because no.

“My phone died.” Evan holds it up as proof, like that’s some kind of excuse.

“Oh, your rich fake family doesn’t have any chargers?”

“O-only iPhones.”

Right. Jared just crosses his arms. “Alana’s gone.”

“I figured.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“I said… I said I’d come?”

“It’s 9:30!” Jared rolls his eyes. “Whatever, man. You can call Alana, and she can fill you in. I didn’t listen to her.”

It’s a lie. Kind of. He didn’t _actively_ listen to Alana, but he heard her. He could tell Evan all about the orchard and the Kickstarter and all that crap. But he won’t.

“Are you…” Evan kind of flinches a little bit. “Are you mad at me?”

“Welllll… You said you wouldn’t leave me alone with Alana. And what did you fucking do?”

“Why’s it a big deal?”

Jared rolls his eyes. “Because you said you would be here!”

“S-sorry. I just… I was…”

“You’ve been over there the whole time?”

Evan nods, and his eyes dart away. He looks at the ground, and his face totally gives him away. Something’s definitely up.

“What happened?”

“W-what?” Evan looks up, totally jumpy and guilty, and…

“What did you do?”

“Nothing!”

“Bullshit.”

 _”Language!”_

Jared rolls his eyes in the general direction of his mother’s voice and then snaps his head back to Evan. Without a word, he jerks his head toward the stairs in an obvious order to follow him. They need to get away from his mom’s obvious earshot at the very least.

Once they’re safely in his room, Jared shoves Evan into a seated position on the bed and stands in front of him expectantly. “What. Did. You. _Do?_ ”

“I didn’t,” he shakes his head quickly, “I didn’t do anything.”

“What? You tried to kiss Zoe again?” 

“No!” Evan looks totally fucking panicked, and…

“Oh, my god. You tried to _kiss_ her again!”

But Evan just keeps shaking his head. “I didn’t… I-I…” His face is bright red, and he’s staring at the floor. “She kissed me…”

Jared might as well just pass out because he’s pretty sure his brain completely fucking shuts off. There is no way in hell he just heard that correctly. There’s no way in hell that that actually _happened._

“No, she didn’t.”

Evan looks up, though, and his face is totally serious. “She did.”

“Zoe Murphy kissed you?” Evan’s still blushing, but he nods. “Oh, my god. What did you _do_?!”

“I just,” He shrugs. “Kissed her back…”

“Please tell me you weren’t in Connor’s room again.”

Evan says nothing. Just turns even redder and stares at the ground.

“Oh, my fucking god.”

Evan starts tugging at the edge of his cast, and he still won’t look up. At least he seems to realize how fucked up that is.

Jared shakes his head. “I hope Connor’s creepy ghost ass is actually haunting that house and watching you freaks defile his bed.”

Actually, if Connor’s ghost is still lingering around watching all this shit, there’s a good chance they _all_ might be doomed. So for his own sake, Jared takes that wish back.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own these characters.

Jared loves camp.

He always has. Camp is just… the best. Seriously. No parents. No assholes at school. Just 8 weeks of awesomeness.

He’s been going to the same camp since he was seven years old, and he honestly does not remember ever being homesick, even back then. He digs his Judaism. Like for real. So he doesn’t even mind that part of camp because it’s a whole different experience from what he gets at his synagogue on a regular basis or- _ugh_ \- what he had to sit through in Hebrew school. It’s not all so structured and boring, and he never feels like people are talking _at_ him at camp. Plus, there’s all the other stuff at camp, which is awesome. He loves the activities and the constant noise and the insanity… Camp is just so much better than school. Like on every level. Obviously they don’t have tests or homework or whatever, but the people there are just _so_ much better.

The problem, of course, is that he gets them for a couple of months a year and has to spend the rest of the time dealing with the idiots in his normal life.

Luckily, though, he can drive now. He gets his keys back without even paying his tickets because apparently his parents think he’s so much more mature now that he’s playing treasurer to some suicide awareness group. So they give him his car back, which is awesome because it means he doesn’t have to ride the bus to school anymore, and it also means that he can say HELL YES when he gets an invitation for a meetup with some of his camp friends. When he was younger, this would never happen because nobody’s parents (definitely not _his_ parents) were going to drive them an hour or more for a meet up. But now they’re older and they have cars and licenses, and if they want to meet up, all they need is permission.

Which, thanks to his newfound maturity and responsibility, his mom is happy to give him.

He hasn’t seen anybody since August, so he’s excited to make plans for the weekend. It will give him a break from school and from The Connor Project and all that crap. 

He has to make it through the next two days of school, though, which sucks because he’s really getting tired of things there. He’s tired of people talking to him about Connor and the orchard and all the other stuff that he really doesn’t know jackshit about. He’s gotten so good at referring people to Alana that he thinks he should probably win some kind of award for dodging shit. Not that she cares anyway. She freaking _lives_ for this kind of stuff. People approaching her and asking her questions and stuff, that’s the kind of stuff she gets off on. It makes her feel important or validated or something, so that’s fine. She can answer all the questions in the world. That’s more than fine with him.

She and Evan have jumped headfirst into this whole orchard thing. As messed up as Jared thinks it kind of is, Evan apparently has no such reservations. It’s weird actually, since he definitely knows that the whole orchard story is a total lie. But he seems to barely even remember that anymore. It’s almost like he’s actually convinced himself that this stuff is true on some level.

Now that Jared’s got his car back, he actually texts Evan and asks him if he wants a ride to school. But all he gets back is just a simple _no thanks,_ which okay. Whatever. That just means he’ll have time to hit the drive-thru and pick up a McGriddle or something before school. He makes an effort to drive extra safely and to observe all red lights with an appropriate stop because the last thing he needs is another ticket or something when he’s impressing his parents so much with his new responsibility and everything.

He’s once again thankful for the senior parking lot when he gets to school, not because he’s late this time but just because he’s lazy. He’s a little surprised to see Evan walking from the other parking lot, and then he’s not so surprised to see Zoe walking beside him. Well, no wonder he didn’t need a ride this morning. Apparently he’s already set on that front. Jared watches them walk from across the lot, and Zoe laughs ( _laughs_ ) at something that Evan says. _Evan._ Evan’s not funny! What the hell is she laughing at?

Jared ducks into the school before they see him. He’s not sure why he does that.

It’s only been a week since they went viral, but things have changed drastically. Jared notices that even though Evan seemed totally okay with hiding in his phone or books at first to avoid people’s questions, he’s really started opening up to the idea of people wanting to talk to him and know him. It’s weird- obviously- because it’s Evan. And Jared’s known Evan pretty much his entire life- at least the part of his life that he can remember. And never, in all those years, has he ever known Evan to be someone who _wants_ people to talk to him. So, yeah, it’s a little weird. 

Jared, on the other hand, is starting to get over it. Like big time. It’s not that he hates the fact that people are suddenly acknowledging his presence (like seriously, he’s been here the _whole time_ ), but he’s starting to get worn out with the whole Connor thing. He still believes in the overall message of The Connor Project, but it’s just a lot. Like a ton. And he’s a little tired of it all. He kind of just wishes things would go back to normal.

He spends all morning having half-assed conversations with people who sit around him, mostly because it seems like everyone in the school is making an effort to at least be somewhat more social with each other. And a little less malicious. Not that that’s a bad thing, but he’d appreciate it a lot more if any of it was real. Or at least if the reasoning behind it was real. He does have to admit, though, that the whole school seems to be a lot nicer to each other all of a sudden. So that’s a plus. He guesses. But it’s also weird.

He even kind of welcomes study hall because at least Alana is somebody he actually _knows_. Somebody who spoke to him at least sporadically before a member of their class decided to off himself in his bedroom. Granted, she talks to him a little _too_ much lately, and it’s usually in the form of orders, but whatever. She smiles when she sees him and moves her bag out of the chair beside her. He thinks she was probably saving it for him, which is… nice. He guesses. 

“I found something for you!” She immediately thrusts a printout at him, and he looks down at it and rolls his eyes. It’s a checklist for applying to college. Because of course it is.

“Uh, thanks.”

“Do you want me to help you start narrowing your choices? How many applications are you planning to send in? In my opinion, you can’t send in too many, but of course, it can get very expensive because the application fees aren’t cheap.”

He doesn’t like the pressure that settles over him. He’s not worried about the application fees- he knows his parents will pay for however many he decides to send in. That doesn’t mean that he’s eager to start filling these applications out or writing these essays or anything else. He doesn’t like high school that much, but he’s not exactly ready to leave it, either. It’s stupid, he knows. But it’s just… He’s almost an adult, and he just doesn’t feel ready yet.

“Do you know if you want to stay in state or go out of state?” 

Alana’s got her tablet out and is pulling something up. Probably a list of every school in the state or something. But he doesn’t know what he wants to do. He doesn’t know where he wants to _go_. He just wants to stay a kid and let his mom wash his clothes and make his food as long as humanly possible, if he’s being honest, but he knows that’s not realistic. 

“It’s fine if you don’t know for sure yet.” Alana obviously doesn’t care that he hasn’t actually answered her at all. “You can apply to some of both and then just decide based on your acceptances.”

Whatever college crap she’s pulling up apparently gets sidelined, though, because she gets distracted by an alert on her iPad. Jared watches half-interestedly when her mouth drops open. “Somebody just donated $7500 to the Kickstarter!”

Jared looks over her shoulder and sees that she is in fact reading that correctly. At this point, he’s not even surprised. They’re nowhere close to the goal yet, but it’s only been a couple of days since the Kickstarter went live. Most of the donations are small- just ten or twenty bucks, which he’s sure are coming from a bunch of kids who can barely even afford that. But there are a few larger donations sprinkled in, a couple of really significant ones like the one this one. All the money Jared made off the buttons is in there. Not that he’s thrilled about that.

“I think we need to do something special when we meet the halfway mark. Maybe some kind of Facebook live Q&A or something. What do you think?”

Jared doesn’t think. That’s the truth. He has no opinion on any of this. At least none that he can share without getting interrogated. So instead, of giving his thoughts, he just says, “Yeah, maybe. Hey, I really need to study for my physics test.”

He doesn’t even have a test, but she’s not in his class so she doesn’t know that. She immediately nods and leaves him alone because apparently she doesn’t want to compromise his test grade. It might be the key factor as to whether he gets into an Alana-approved college after all. He pulls his book out and starts reading a bunch of boring shit he doesn’t care about and doubts has any real world usage. 

Whatever, though, at least he’s not being forced to talk about college or The Connor Project. So that’s a win.

Alana runs off after study hall, so he doesn’t even get the satisfaction of ditching her at the bathroom like he’s taken to doing pretty regularly. He still stops in to wash his hands and also because he just needs a second away from everything. It doesn’t really happen, though, because Jeff Miller says, “Hey, man,” when he sees him at the sink. And Jeff Miller has never spoken to him, except that one time in tenth grade when he randomly told him he had mustard on his shirt. But now he apparently acknowledges him and says hey, so Jared just kind of lifts his head in response because he thinks saying hey back would sound stupid.

When he gets to the cafeteria, he goes through the line like usual. And when Kaley McDonough trips a little bit and bumps into the back of him, she doesn’t huff up and accuse him of being in the way or stopping too quickly. Instead, she just apologetically presses a hand to the place on his back where her tray jammed and says, “Sorry, Jared!” 

It’s seriously like the whole fucking school has flipped into some alternate universe. It’s actually insane.

When he gets through the line, though, he starts to head over to his usual table but sees that it’s surprisingly empty. It’s been getting fuller and fuller lately, which whatever, but that whole end of the table is just empty. Jared’s confused, but then he sees Zoe walking over. He figures she’s coming to sit down because she’s been here every day for a week now, so where else would she be?

“Hey, do you know where Evan is?” 

She looks at him like she doesn’t know why he’s talking to her. But she answers anyway. “Yeah, he’s getting his cast off, remember?”

No, he doesn’t remember. “I thought that wasn’t until Tuesday?”

“The doctor’s on vacation or something, so they moved it up. He didn’t tell you?” Well, obviously fucking not. He wouldn’t be asking if he did, now would he? Zoe obviously reads his face because she just shrugs.

And then she keeps walking, all the way back to her old table with her friends.

Well, great. Now he doesn’t even have Zoe fucking Murphy to sit with. What kind of shit is this? He has two options. Well, three maybe. He can sit by himself in his regular spot and hope that nobody happens to look his way. He can dump his tray and go hide out in the library or the bathroom or something. Or he can deal with it and find somebody else to sit with.

He takes a deep breath, sucks it up, and heads over to the least threatening table in his eye line. And then he sits down right beside Alana like it’s no big deal and does his best to pretend like he isn’t having some stupid teenage cafeteria-induced social freakout. She’s sitting with a few people he recognizes, and a couple of them look a little confused by his sudden appearance. Nobody says anything, though, which is good, and Alana just smiles at him and nods.

“Oh, yeah. Evan’s getting his cast off today, right? I forgot.”

He nods and goes to work on his milk. She forgot, but at least she fucking knew.

… … …

He catches Evan online later that night. His dad’s not home, and his mom is still super busy with work. So Jared’s kind of left to fend for himself (or at least to order a pizza for himself). He submits the order online and then decides to Skype Evan because he’s clearly online, and it’s not like Jared has anything better to do.

Evan answers, and he looks a little surprised that Jared’s calling him. 

“Hey, man. What’s up?”

Evan looks confused, but he shrugs. “Nothing.”

“Let me see your arm.”

Evan still looks confused, but he holds up his now cast-free arm as instructed. 

“Shit, dude. You need some lotion!”

Evan scratches at his arm in reaction. The skin is white and flaky, and Jared remembers how dry and gross his skin was after he broke his wrist falling off the porch in fourth grade. It was nasty.

“So how’s it feel?”

Evan kind of wrinkles his nose and glances down. “Weird.”

Jared remembers that, too. As annoying as the cast is, it becomes like an extra attachment to your body, and it’s super weird when it’s suddenly gone. Same thing with braces really. Takes a minute to get used to not having that stuff after it’s been there awhile.

“I didn’t even know you were going today. I still thought it was Tuesday.”

“Oh.” Evan glances down and scratches again. “Yeah, t-they moved it.”

“You didn’t tell me. I just couldn’t find you at lunch.”

“Sorry?” It sounds like a question, but Jared pretends not to notice.

Instead, he just shrugs. “It’s cool. Zoe told me where you were.”

Evan nods, but he doesn’t say anything. Jared wants to ask him if something’s going on, but he doesn’t because it’s sometimes really hard to tell if something’s wrong or if it’s just Thursday. 

“So, hey. You wanna go to temple tomorrow? My mom said to ask you.” 

She totally didn’t say that, but who cares. If he gets Evan to temple, she’ll be ecstatic, so what does it matter? He’s not even really sure why he’s asking him- maybe just because it’s something to do. Evan is technically Jewish, but like not observant at all. At least not for the past several years. But that doesn’t mean he can’t still come hang out. If he wants to.

He doesn’t.

“No, thanks,” he mumbles, shaking his head. “I mean, I-I just… Maybe some other time?”

Jared shrugs because whatever. “You going to the Murphys’ for dinner tonight?”

“Yeah…” Evan looks up. “But I told my mom I was going to your house, so like, so don’t tell her. Or whatever. If you see her, not that you’ll see her, but if you do or whatever.”

Is he surprised that Evan’s life has turned into lying to his mother about his whereabouts? Not as much as he would have guessed a couple of months ago really.

… … …

Evan basically ignores him the whole next day. They see each other at lunch and sit at the same table, but they don’t really talk much because Zoe’s short reunion the day before just ends with her moving said friends to their table the next. And obviously everyone just wants to talk to Evan about Connor and the orchard and all that stuff. Jared just sits there, stabbing mindlessly at his spaghetti and trying to block out the conversation. At one point, he glances over at Zoe and sees that her expression is very close to matching his own.

He wonders if she’s also just about over the whole Connor Project thing.

He also talks to him that afternoon for a total of five minutes when he catches him on Skype to show off some emails he wrote while he was bored in English and needed an extra dose of amusement. Evan, though? Apparently not that amused with the idea that Connor also wanted to be friends with Jared, despite the fact that he’s been known to be insanely cool. Whatever. It’s a joke. Mostly. Evan just has no sense of humor. He’s also apparently pretty territorial about Connor and his friendship.

And okay. Jared needs him to remember the fact that _none_ of this is real. Whatever, though. If it’s that important then… Whatever.

He tells Evan that he’ll have to wait til Monday for new emails because he’s got plans all weekend, but then Evan basically tells him that he doesn’t need emails. Really doesn’t need _Jared_ from what it sounds like.

“I think Alana and I pretty much have it covered, but if I think of something, I’ll let you know.”

Right. It’s not like Jared cares anyway. He’s got better things to do than con the whole Internet with dead kids and trees. 

… … …

He’s excited to get out of town on Saturday. This is kind of the furthest he’s driven by himself, so he’s excited for that, too. Also excited to be out of his house for a whole weekend. Well, at least for a day and a half. He’s going to stay with his friend Jonah, and they’re going to hang out with some of their other friends. And yes, this is _much_ better than anything that’s going on at home.

They meet the others off some random exit that’s a lot closer to Jonah’s than it is to Jared’s, and it’s like the mini-reunion they could have been having their whole lives if they all had parents who didn’t suck. Like seriously, outside of like seventh grade (hello, party year), they have never gotten to spend time together away from camp. So it’s cool and feels weirdly adult. And as much as Jared doesn’t want to be an adult with actual adult responsibilities, he’s totally down for some adultish fun with his friends seventy-five miles away from his parents. 

And it’s great at first because they just grab a table at this random diner and sit around laughing and talking before they order their food. And despite the fact that his school has suddenly become a lot nicer and a lot more inclusive, these are people who have _always_ been nice to him. He’s known them nearly as long or even longer than he’s known most of the kids at school, and they’ve never acted like he was invisible or like he was beneath them. They’ve always laughed at his jokes and included him, and he’s spent his entire life wishing that his real life was more like his camp life. 

The server comes and takes their order and looks kind of annoyed that six teenagers have decided to sit in her section, but whatever. She brings their drinks and then leaves them alone. Jared laughs when Nick starts telling some story about how his sister got drunk and fell asleep on the neighbor’s back porch because she was too scared to try and sneak back into the house. It’s just dumb shit like that, but it’s fun because his life has been way too full of serious crap lately. He’s totally thankful for the break.

Too bad it doesn’t last too long.

They’ve only been in the restaurant maybe ten or fifteen minutes before Jake finally brings it up. “So did you know that Connor kid?”

Jared doesn’t roll his eyes, but he totally wants to. Instead, he just shrugs. “I mean, kind of. We’ve gone to school together forever.”

“But you weren’t friends?”

“Connor didn’t _have_ friends.”

“Except Evan, though, right?”

Jared nods. “Right. Yeah. Evan was his friend.”

“But you guys are friends, right?”

There are five sets of eyes watching him intently, and he feels like he’s under some kind of damn microscope or something. Normally, he loves when they all pay attention to him, but that’s usually when he’s trying to make them laugh. Not when he’s just making a huge lie even bigger.

“Family friends,” he corrects, mostly out of habit. Then he shrugs, “I guess.”

“I bet he’s super upset. But that’s crazy how viral that shit is.” Nick grabs his water and gulps down about half of it. “I was telling these people at school that I knew you guys. It’s like all anybody’s talking about.”

Jared’s not sure who _you guys_ is supposed to be referring to because the only time Nick’s ever met Evan was at Jared’s Bar Mitzvah a million years ago. And he’s not even sure if _meeting_ is an accurate term because Evan spent the whole party at a table in the corner, not eating anything, not speaking to anyone, just looking like he was wishing he could go home sooner rather than later. Seriously, his _mom_ was more social at that party than Evan was, but that’s not really surprising because Heidi kind of outranks Evan on every level of cool. But still. She’s a _mom._

But the only reason Jared even recalls anything about Evan from that night is because his own mom yanked him aside for a second and told him that he needed to “stop ignoring his guests and try to make everyone feel included.” She didn’t name any names, but it was super obvious who she was talking about. Jared rolled his eyes and thought it was totally ridiculous that he had to stop having fun at his _own Bar Mitzvah_ to babysit a kid who couldn’t even make an effort to try and have a little fun. So he went up to Evan and told him to stop being weird and to go talk to somebody or at least go to the candy bar and fill up on Pop Rocks and giant Pixie Stix. Of course, Evan didn’t do any of those things, but oh fucking well.

Needless to say, though, Nick doesn’t _know_ Evan.

For a brief second, Jared entertains the thought of telling the truth. He thinks about just opening his mouth and telling them that the whole thing is bullshit. That it’s a lie. A con. Whatever. He can’t tell the world, but maybe he can tell his friends. He wonders what they’d say- if they’d be freaked the fuck out and think he’s a psycho or if they’d laugh and be amazed at his role in the Internet’s most current scam. Doesn’t matter, though, he can’t tell them. He can’t tell anyone. It hits him very suddenly and very roughly that this is a secret- a _lie_ \- that he’s basically going to have to take to his grave.

And apparently, it’s officially consuming every aspect of his life. School, home, even what was supposed to just be a fun hangout session with friends he never gets to see. All _anybody_ wants to talk about is the fucking Connor Project.

The whole thing is really starting to lose its appeal.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own none of this.

Jared doesn’t hear from Evan for two straight weeks. 

He still sees him at school, and they still eat lunch at the same table. But he’s pretty sure (no, _definitely_ sure) that Evan hasn’t spoken an actual word to him during that timeframe. It’s stupid because it’s not like Jared _cares_ if Evan talks to him or not. He definitely doesn’t care that Evan’s suddenly speaking to _everyone_ when a couple of months ago, he couldn’t string two fucking words together. More than anything, though, he doesn’t care that the only person Evan _wants_ to talk to is Zoe Murphy.

The last time Jared had an actual conversation with Evan, he claimed that he didn’t know what he and Zoe were exactly. Either they’ve figured it out, or they’re both happy living in oblivion because they’re fucking inseparable. It’s totally a secret, though. Or at least it’s supposed to bed. Jared guesses that most people just assume they’re growing close and bonding over Connor or something. Most people’s minds wouldn’t automatically jump to them making out on Connor’s bed on multiple occasions because that’s just fucked up and not normal at all. It also happens to be true, but Jared’s pretty sure he might be the only actual person to know this.

Story of his life really.

He’s keeping that secret, just like he’s keeping all of Evan’s secrets. Which is pretty fucked up actually, considering the fact that Evan basically no longer speaks to him. Barely even acknowledges him really, which what the fuck ever. Not like he cares.

When Evan finally _does_ talk to him, it’s at a meeting for The Connor Project that Alana set up and insisted they both attend. She decides they can go to Starbucks after school, and Jared goes begrudgingly, mostly because he doesn’t want to listen to Alana’s mouth if he doesn’t show up. When he gets there, he’s not remotely surprised to see Zoe sitting beside Evan and across from Alana at a small four top table in the corner. Of course she’s there. Where else would she be if not attached to Evan’s fucking hip? Jared ignores all of them at first and just goes straight to the counter to order a hot chocolate, even though it’s almost 70 degrees outside and way too warm for this time of year. He asks for extra whipped cream and stands around still ignoring his group until his name is finally called.

When he gets to the table, Alana’s the only one who actually speaks to him. It’s barely even an acknowledgement, but at least she says hello. Zoe and Evan ignore him while they both look at something on Evan’s phone. Jared really doesn’t know why the hell he’s even here.

He has even less idea why when Alana actually starts speaking. She’s got handouts- _handouts_ \- like she’s a teacher or something, and she passes them out once Zoe and Evan finally put the phone away and Jared stops blowing on his drink trying to cool it. Jared barely glances at it, sees a bunch of words like orchard and trees, and decides to zone out. Or at least he tries. Alana obviously isn’t going to let that happen, and she starts blabbing away about how she’s got a piece of land lined up for once they meet the fundraising goal and how she’s been partnering with a local nursery who’s willing to donate at least some of the trees. And that’s where they all come in because obviously they won’t have the funds to hire many professionals, so most of the work is going to depend on volunteers and hands on participation from all of them as well.

And hold the fuck up.

“Absolutely not.” Jared puts the paper down and shakes his head. He’s drawing the fucking line right there.

Alana looks annoyed, but she stops in the middle of her speech and says, “What’s wrong?”

“You mean we’re actually going to plant real trees? Like plant them? In the dirt?”

Somebody- _Zoe Murphy_ \- snorts, but Jared pointedly ignores it. Instead, he stares at Alana who looks at him like she doesn’t really know what to say. Finally, she settles on, “What did you think we were going to do?”

And to be honest, he didn’t think about it. Not really. But he just shrugs. “I don’t know. Scatter some seeds around or something.”

“What? Like Johnny fucking Appleseed?” Zoe sounds highly amused when she says it, and Jared can’t actually ignore her this time, so he turns a brief glare at her as she laughs before he looks back at Alana. 

“I’m not doing this.”

Alana seems like she’s on edge, in one of her too tightly wound moods or something, and Jared feels like he should possibly be afraid. He can tell she’s ready to snap at any moment, and he should quit while he’s ahead. Still, she manages to keep it together while she curtly says, “What is the problem exactly?”

Oh, exactly? Oh, okay.

“I don’t know how much you know about my people, but we’re the _chosen people_ for a reason. And part of that reason is that we don’t have to plant fucking trees in the dirt!”

Alana actually facepalms like she just cannot. Zoe laughs again, but Jared kind of gets the feeling that she’s more amused _by_ him this time than she is _at_ him. Evan does nothing. Just sits there reading the paper in front of him like he’s completely checked out or something.

Jared just shakes his head. “I am not doing that. I would literally rather kill myself than go digging arou-“ 

He shuts himself up abruptly when his words echo in his head about two seconds too late. An awkward silence takes over, and he feels his cheeks heat up. Alana lifts her head and looks at him. So does Evan. Jared, though, mostly just looks across the table at Zoe who’s no longer amused by him or at him or in any way. She just meets him with tight lips and slightly narrowed eyes, and he really does feel like a piece of shit in that moment.

“I didn’t…” He bites down a little too hard on his lower lip. “Sorry. Shit. I didn’t mean anything.” Nobody seems willing to let it go that easily, so he tries to cover it up a little. “I just mean… like we have 72,000 Twitter followers. Surely enough people will show up so that we don’t actually have to do the physical labor part, right?”

Everybody just ignores him after that. Alana goes back to talking, and nobody really acknowledges his presence. And whatever. What the fuck is he even doing here? He didn’t _mean_ to be offensive. It’s not like he was being serious or whatever. That’s just something people say. Like, _”Oh, I’d rather blow my brains out than sit through chemistry today.”_ They don’t mean it literally. Jared didn’t mean it literally. 

But whatever, okay. He doesn’t care about this stupid orchard anyway.

… … …

His mom has been irritated at him for days.

Whatever brief stint of pride and sweetness she felt toward him has obviously faded because he can’t do anything right. She starts snapping at him about every little thing, nagging at him about his room being a mess, griping about his inattentiveness. Mostly, she’s on him about his attitude, which she claims sucks. 

To be fair, she’s probably a little right. At least a little. He hasn’t been in the greatest mood lately, so his attitude probably _does_ suck. At least a little. But whatever. She wouldn’t be in a great mood, either, if she was having to deal with all the shit he’s currently battling. All the secrets and lies and unearned popularity and fame. Everything feels like it’s just spinning out of control, and Jared’s just standing there watching it. Doing nothing. He doesn’t know how to make it stop.

He’s pretty sure he _can’t_ make it stop.

She starts on him first thing at breakfast because he was up too late the night before. She threatens to set a bedtime- a fucking _bedtime_ \- if he doesn’t stop gaming til 3 or 4. He laughs at her- actually laughs at her because what the fuck. There’s no way she’s going to do that, or even _could_ do that, so he doesn’t even know why she’s trying to use it as a threat.

“Are you gonna like sit on my bed with your hand over my eyes until you force me to fall asleep?”

She really doesn’t seem amused, though. “Jared, you got like two hours of sleep last night. You can’t function on that.”

“I’ll manage.” He shoves the last of his toast in his mouth and tries really hard to stifle the yawn that inopportunely taunts him at the exact wrong moment. He does his best to hide it and grabs his backpack so that he can get out of there, but she stops him.

“I haven’t seen your friends in awhile.”

He slings the bag over his shoulders. “What friends?”

“Evan. That little girl.”

He gives her a WTF look. “What little girl? _Alana?_ ”

“Yeah, Alana.”

Jared rolls his eyes, both at his mom’s description and just in general. “She’s not my friend.” He knows better than to say Evan’s not his friend- talk about opening a can of fucking worms. 

“Well, she seems really nice.”

“She’s president of The Connor Project. She’s just an acquaintance.” 

He uses Alana’s favorite word on purpose, mostly because it’s true. He gave up on any strained notion that they might actually be _friends_ weeks ago when he realized that she’s literally obsessed with The Connor Project and is incapable of talking about anything else. He still uses her as a safety net at school because she’s one of the few people he doesn’t think is totally fake. And she’s easy to use when he needs somewhere to sit so he doesn’t look like a complete loser. But they’re not _friends._ They could never just hang out and play video games or something.

Not like he could with Evan. If he ever actually spoke to Evan anymore. Which he really doesn’t.

“Maybe you should invite them over. We could do dinner or something.”

“Who? Evan and Alana?”

“Or anyone. Whoever you want.”

He narrows his eyes. “Yeah. Hard pass, Mom. But thanks.”

She doesn’t say anything else when he waves and heads out the door. He has no idea what the hell that was about or why she’s suddenly obsessed with him inviting people over. He thinks she’s probably still worried that he’s suicidal or something. He wonders if she’d be as pissed about him staying up so late if he was talking to friends and not strangers through his gaming headset. 

School is just the same as it always is these days- weird as fuck.

The super overly polite shit is dying down a little bit, but people aren’t necessarily back to just being straight up assholes. Nobody is an outright jerk to him, but people aren’t really still talking to him a lot or whatever. Which is fine. Whatever. He’s not the star of this show, and he’s well aware of that fact. People still want to talk to Evan, but Jared’s kind of forgotten in all of it. Not like he cares. Out of everyone involved in The Connor Project, he’s _definitely_ the least visible. And whatever. He doesn’t care.

He takes a nap in economics because, despite what he told his mother, two hours of sleep really won’t cut it. Plus, this crap is boring as hell. Also plus, he just doesn’t care. It works because Mr. Benson is one of those teachers who literally doesn’t give a fuck what you do in his class, but Jared wakes up to the bell buzzing and a puddle of drool on his arm. And gross.

His other classes are boring, too, but the only other one he could possibly catch a nap in is study hall. But that’s where Alana is, so it’s a definite no go. She wouldn’t let him sleep in school if his life literally depended on it, and anyway, she’s got a crap ton to talk about because apparently they’re 17 thousand dollars short on the Kickstarter goal, which is, you know, like a week away from its deadline. 

Just $17K. Okay, yeah. Sure. _No problem._

“It’ll be fine, though,” she says with that air of determined confidence he’s not sure anyone else could pull off quite as well. “I think I know how to re-engage the community.”

Jared doesn’t know what the fuck she means by _the community,_ but he doesn’t ask. He also wasn’t really aware that they needed re-engaging, but he’s not exactly been stalking The Connor Project’s socials or anything lately, either. He’s losing interest as much as it seems everyone else is. Alana doesn’t wait for him to say anything, though, she just reaches into her bag and pulls out a folder. 

“Have you seen these?” She shoves the folder at him, and he opens it begrudgingly because he can already promise he doesn’t care.

Except…

“What the hell is this?” He looks at her, mild panic settling low in his stomach after glancing at the top page. 

“They’re some of the emails that Connor and Evan wrote.”

Jared feels his face heat up, and he feels a little nauseous. “W-where did… How did you get these?”

 _Surely_ Evan didn’t give her these. Surely he’s not that fucking stupid.

But Alana just flips some hair over her shoulder and says, “Mrs. Murphy sent them to me. I guess Evan’s been giving them to her. She says he brings her new ones all the time.”

Well, sure. Jared wrote about a million of these. Back when Evan still needed him for something. 

He looks down at his own words, and he feels sick when Alana says, “I’m going to add these to the website. I need Evan to go over some stuff first, though, because I noticed a few inconsistencies.”

For half a second, Jared is almost offended at the implication that he doesn’t know how to cohesively weave a story. Of course, he stops being offended when he really processes what she says because…

“You can’t put these online!”

She looks confused and wrinkles her nose a little bit. “Why not? These are exactly what we need to reignite interest.”

“Who cares about interest?” He shakes his head. “You can’t put these up because they’re…” he searches around for the right word, “… _private!_ ”

But Alana just seems like she doesn’t get it at all. “People need to see these. They deserve to hear from Connor directly.”

Jared wants to scream. He wants to scream and rip up these emails and hide them far, far away from Alana, but he knows that’s dumb. Instead, he just tries to talk some sense into her.

“Evan won’t want these published.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re private!” he says again. He doesn’t know why she can’t comprehend that.

“Well, he gave them Mrs. Murphy.”

Jared rolls his eyes. “Because she’s Connor’s _mom!_ He’s not going to want the whole world to see these.”

Alana seems totally unaffected. “I’m sure he’ll understand why this is important. I just need him to explain a few things. Some of these don’t make sense.” 

Jared bites down on his back teeth, once again offended at her unknowing jab at his writing skills. She goes right on without noticing.

“It’s really sad to read these. It’s also kind of strange. These don’t even sound like Connor.”

“How do you know what Connor sounded like?!” Jared snaps a little too quickly and a little too sharply, and he hears himself at the same time he sees Alana’s shocked face. He reels it in quickly. “I mean, we didn’t really know him. No one did.”

“Except Evan.”

He nods, trying to ignore the way he’s starting to sweat under his t-shirt. “Right. Yeah. So maybe we should just let Evan keep these to himself.”

Alana looks annoyed with him and reaches over to grab the folder back. Jared lets her do it even though he thinks he should probably grab them and run to the closest shredder. And then run to the closest computer lab and maybe delete an entire email account or something. But he doesn’t. He just lets her take the emails and shove them back into her bag. 

“I’ll talk to Evan about it,” she says curtly, and he assumes that’s the end of the conversation.

She ignores him for the rest of the period, choosing instead to read something in her physics book. Whatever. He doesn’t care. He’s glad she stops talking to him because it gives him a chance to text Evan and try to give him a heads up about Alana having the emails and wanting to publish them.

He gets no response.

In fact, he doesn’t have any contact with Evan for the rest of the day. Evan doesn’t even look at him at lunch, and every time he sees him in the hallway, he’s 100 percent enthralled in whatever Zoe’s saying. Because she’s always there. Literally. _Always there._

It’s not until school ends that Jared finally sees him without Zoe. He has to stay after to make up a chem quiz he missed when he went to the dentist earlier in the week, and he’s surprised to see Evan outside. He’s not alone, though, and Jared can see that he’s arguing with Alana over something. Well, maybe not _arguing._ Jared’s pretty sure that he’s the only person Evan’s ever argued with his in his entire life. But they’re having what appears to be a slightly heated discussion, and Jared can already guess what it’s about. He assumes Evan didn’t read his text or chose to ignore it, but whatever. He purposely stays away until he sees Alana leave.

For a second, he debates whether he should approach Evan at all. He could just leave and ignore him the same way Evan’s been ignoring him for the past weeks. He still feels his feet walking in that direction, though, and he feels his face plastering on a somewhat friendly smile almost against his own best judgment. And then he hears himself talking.

“Hey. My parents are out of town this weekend, and the last time they used the liquor cabinet was like Rosh Hashanah 1997, so we can drink whatever we want.”

It’s true that his parents are going out of town. It’s also true that the liquor cabinet is full and nearly always untouched. The chances of anyone noticing anything are slim to none at best, and really, it’s not like they’ve never done it before. Not _a lot._ They not exactly huge partiers- mostly because Evan’s lame, and Jared kind of hates the way alcohol tastes but will drink it occasionally when it’s there because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re seventeen and just trying to be as normal as fucking possible. 

But Evan obviously isn’t down for actually hanging out or doing anything remotely normal because he immediately torts back with, “I can’t this weekend. I have to raise seventeen-thousand dollars.” He glances over his shoulder nervously like he’s checking to make sure Alana isn’t still lurking. “Remember, The Connor Project? You’re supposed to be working on this?”

And okay. Well, no. Fuck that. 

“Remember you told me you didn’t need my help?”

“Well, I didn’t tell you to do nothing!” Evan’s obviously keyed up, and Jared just stares at him. “I know you think this is all a joke, but it’s not. It’s important.”

“For Connor.”

“Yeah.” Evan nods confidently like he actually fucking believes that.

And in that exact moment, Jared officially decides that he’s done.

He’s done with all this bullshit. With Evan. With Connor. With Evan pretending like he and Connor were a thing. With Evan seeming to actually _believe_ that he and Connor were a thing. With The Connor Project and Zoe and Alana and the Murphys. And just… he’s just done.

So if Evan wants to be an asshole, Jared will be an asshole, too. And maybe Evan should shut the fuck up and think for a goddamn second about the fact that Jared could blow the fucking roof off this whole thing. And all _this?_ All this could go away in a second. Because what is all this anyway? Just a bunch of lies and smokescreens and…

“You know, when you really stop and think about it, Connor being dead? That’s pretty much the best thing that’s ever happened to you, isn’t it?”

Evan stares at him for a second like he’s shocked Jared would actually point out the fucking obvious. “Th-that’s a horrible thing to say.”

“Well, but no. Think about it. If Connor hadn’t died, no one would even know who you are.” Jared hears himself talking and saying all the things he’s been thinking for days or weeks now. And he doesn’t give a single shit about the disturbed look on Evan’s face as he’s faced with the truth. “I mean, people at school actually _talk_ to you now. You’re almost _popular!_ ” Jared lets out a sarcastic laugh at the idiocy of the whole thing. “Which is just… wonder of wonders. _Miracle of miracles._ ”

But Evan just shakes his head. Just shakes his head like he refuses to hear what Jared says or definitely refuses to _believe_ it. “I-I don’t care about any of that. I don’t c-care if people at school know who I am. All I wanted to do was-“

 _”Help the Murphys.”_ Jared finishes the sentence for him. He’s heard it a billion times at this point. “Yeah, I know. You keep saying that.”

Evan stares at him. Almost like he’s in shock that Jared is actually calling him out on all this bullshit. And Jared doesn’t feel bad at all because he’s over this. He’s over all of this, and this… _whoever_ the fuck this is in front of him. He’s over him, too.

And then, of course, Zoe walks up with her massive guitar case strapped on her back, and Jared realizes that the only reason Evan’s sticking around after school is because he’s waiting on his… _girlfriend_ to get out of band. And Jared feels like he wants to puke or something, and he doesn’t even know why. 

Zoe’s all smiles, and when she says, “Hey, Jared,” there’s not even a hint of malice to it.

And Jared just… He just fucking _hates_ her. And he doesn’t even know why.

She doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, she just grabs Evan’s hand and _kisses_ him right there in front of the school. And sure, there’s nobody else around, but this is the first time Jared’s ever seen them kiss, even though he’s obviously heard about it multiple times. At least back when Evan used to talk to him. Which no longer happens because apparently Evan only talks to Zoe fucking Murphy. 

And whatever.

But Jared knows something is different. Different with Evan and Zoe, and he doesn’t know what it is, but something’s happened there. They’re probably fucking or something. The thought makes him wince, but he can just tell with the way they’re looking at each other that something is different. They’re acknowledging their relationship. _In public._ At least in front of Jared. Jared wonders if Zoe knows that he’s known all about them since before they even started. Probably not. There’s a shit ton of stuff that Zoe doesn’t know. 

Stuff that Jared could tell her.

But he doesn’t, of course. Instead, he just watches them share a small kiss and hold hands, and he just shakes his head slowly.

“Look at you… Helping the Murphys.”

He leaves the words there like some kind of vague threat, and he makes eye contact with Evan for half a second before he turns and walks away. He pushes down the anger that he feels. And whatever else is going on. He pushes it down because he doesn’t fucking _care_. 

He hears Zoe over his shoulder. “What was that?”

And then Evan… Nervous and dismissive. “It’s nothing.”

Nothing. Sure. Nothing. 

… … …


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of this.

He stops trying altogether.

He doesn’t text Evan or message him or acknowledge him in the hallways. He doesn’t even sit at their lunch table anymore, even though it was originally _his_ table. Evan’s the one who took it upon himself to start sitting there. And then to bring Zoe along. And then all of Zoe’s friends. And who the fuck ever else wants to be part of his new squad. 

Not Jared. Fuck that. He wouldn’t be part of that squad now if somebody _paid_ him. 

So he starts sitting with some kids he barely knows, and he doesn’t talk to anyone or try to get to know them. Instead, he just spends most of lunch fucking around on his phone or pretending to study. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone. It works for the most part because it’s not like people are seeking him out or anything. He starts avoiding Alana as much as he can, even though she still has a habit of accosting him in study hall. He usually just makes up some excuse about a test or homework he didn’t do.

When school is over, he usually either just goes straight home, or he drives around doing nothing. One day he goes to GameStop and stays there for like two hours before he finally heads home. 

It’s almost dinnertime by the time he gets home, and he’s surprised to see his dad’s car in the driveway. He usually doesn’t make it home until later, but whatever. Jared just assumes his mom’s probably nagged at him with enough Jewish guilt to make him agree to family dinner. But that just means _family dinner,_ and as part of the family, Jared’s probably going to have to eat with them, too. He was really hoping his mom would just tell him to order pizza or something because he has less than zero interest in sitting down with them and making small talk. It’s been one of the perks of his dad’s super busy work schedule and/or extramarital affair (the jury’s still out on that one). 

When he goes inside, though, both of his parents are in the kitchen waiting for him, and he can tell by the looks on their faces that he’s obviously in trouble. For what? He has no idea. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to have done, but he can tell they aren’t pleased with whatever it is.

Jared goes straight to the fridge to get a drink and says, “What did I do now?” because he figures he might as well just get it over with.

His mom’s the one who answers, and she doesn’t sound remotely amused when she says, “Heidi called me.”

For a second, panic shoots through him. His hand stills on the can of soda he’s reaching for as all the worst case scenarios shoot through his mind. They all end with Heidi knowing everything and ratting him out. And Jared already knows how that story ends. If they get caught, _he’s_ going to be the one who gets blamed. Because nobody’s going to believe that poor, sweet, innocent Evan could ever have done something so terrible without a ringleader pushing him. And Jared will get that ringleader title. Just like he always fucking does.

He tries to keep his face as neutral as possible, though. He takes his drink, shuts the door, and looks at his mom. “So?”

 _”So,_ why did she think Evan’s been staying here every night?”

“I guess because he’s a liar.”

He says it without thinking, but it’s the truth. So whatever.

“She seems to think he’s been eating over here, sleeping over here….”

“So ask him about it, not me! I’m not the one lying about where I am every night. Jesus.”

“Hey, you need to watch your tone.” His dad butts in with his usual mode of threatening, and Jared actually rolls his eyes because he just can’t deal with this right now. He’s not surprised that his dad doesn’t appreciate it. _”Watch it.”_

Jared feels a bunch of anger swirling around in him because this is super messed up. “Ask Evan,” he says again.

“So you’re saying you didn’t know he was telling his mom he was over here?”

Jared looks at his mom and freezes because of course he knew that. That doesn’t mean it’s his fault or that he had anything to do with it. 

“Why would you lie?”

And Jared scoffs. “I didn’t!”

“Heidi works very hard. She doesn’t deserve to be lied to.”

“I’m not the one who lied to her! Oh, my god.” Jared actually laughs because this is just… _ridiculous._

“Okay, you need to calm down.” His mom’s leaning against the counter with her arms crossed, and she looks at him like she’s trying really hard to not go off on him, and like… he seriously doesn’t even know.

“I am calm!” He realizes his voice says the opposite. “I just don’t understand why _I’m_ in trouble because of something _Evan_ did!”

“Nobody said you were in trouble. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on because I don’t know why he would claim he’s been over here when I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

 _”Ask him!”_ Jared hears his voice and knows he should really take his mom’s advice and calm down, but this is just insane. And he’s just… No. “I’m not Evan!”

“You _are_ about to be in trouble if you don’t take it down about twelve notches.” And there’s his dad again, butting in like he has any fucking clue about anything that’s going on. 

Jared just kind of gapes at him. “Do you realize how unfair this is?!”

“I realize that I told you to watch your tone, and you obviously don’t understand that concept.”

“Because this is ridiculous!” Jared shakes his head, wondering why he can’t just shut the fuck up and quit while he’s ahead. “I’m in trouble because Evan’s a pathological liar!”

“No, you’re in trouble because your attitude sucks.”

“My _attitude?!”_

His dad clearly isn’t in the mood. “Yes, your attitude. And the fact that we’re trying to have a civilized conversation with you, but you’ve obviously lost your damn mind and forgotten who you’re speaking to.”

“I know who I’m speaking to, but you’re being _crazy!”_

That’s apparently all his dad’s willing to take because he holds up a hand and says, “That’s it. You’re grounded.”

Jared sees his mom open her mouth, and for half a second, he thinks she’s about to intervene and maybe come to his defense. But she doesn’t. And he hears himself yelling again before he can even stop himself. 

“Are you kidding me?! This is so unfair!” But his dad just lifts his eyebrows like he’s daring him to keep going or something. “For how long?”

“I don’t know. Maybe until you learn some respect and figure out how to get rid of your attitude.

 _”Mom!”_ Jared looks at her expectantly, hoping that she’ll step up and tell her husband that he’s being fucking crazy or something, but she just sighs and reaches under her glasses to rub tiredly at her eyes.

“You do need to adjust your attitude, Jared.”

“This is _bullshit!”_

His dad jumps in again, his tone quickly getting sharper. “That’s it.”

And Jared just throws his hands up in disbelief because…

“Fine, whatever! I’m grounded! I don’t know why you think I even fucking care! Fuck!”

He storms out of the room before anyone can stop him. He hears his dad yell after him, _“You get back-“_ and then his mom cut in, _”Stop. Just let him go.”_

And he hates both of them.

When he gets upstairs, he slams his door harder than he thinks he’s ever slammed it before. He really expects to hear feet racing up the stairs right behind him after that, but he doesn’t. He’s shaking, like literally shaking, and he tells himself to get it together. He’s just _angry_. He didn’t even fucking _do_ anything! 

He grabs his phone out of his pocket and pulls up Evan’s contact. He wants to call and scream at him because all of this is his fault. But he doesn’t hit the call button. Instead, he just closes his fist tightly around his phone in anger before he finally just hurls it across the room. It hits his windowsill and falls to the ground. His screen’s already cracked, so he probably just fucked it for good. He doesn’t even care.

He feels tears in his eyes- fucking _tears_ \- and he pulls his glasses off roughly and tosses them haphazardly right before he flings himself down on his bed. He shoves his face into his pillow and tries to stop shaking and especially tries to stop crying because WTF. He’s not eight. Who the fuck cries over being grounded? But he’s just so _pissed._

This is so fucking unfair.

He forces himself to stop. He’s not going to lie here and cry about it. He’s just not. He’s not a little kid. He’s still super pissed, but he forces the tears to stop because he’s not going to cry over this. He’s just _not._ So instead, he just lies there with his face still pressed into his pillow and focuses on his breathing. In and out. In and out. Over and over again until he finally feels himself calming down some.

But he only gets about thirty minutes of peace before he hears someone knocking on his door. He ignores it because there’s no way in hell he’s going to acknowledge whichever one of his parents has come up here to make him even more miserable. It doesn’t matter, though, because his parents have zero respect for his privacy or space or anything else, and he’s not even surprised when he hears the door being opened. 

“It’s time for dinner.”

He doesn’t look at his mom. Just mumbles into his pillow, “Not hungry.”

“Jared, you need to come eat.”

But he shakes his head because fuck that. He’s not going down there to eat dinner. He’ll die of fucking starvation before he sits at that dinner table with them.

He hears her sigh and then move across the room. She sits down on the edge of his bed, but he refuses to obey when she says, “Look at me.” He keeps his face hidden and his mouth closed. “Jared.”

“I’m not hungry.” He repeats himself, hoping she’ll just take the hint and leave him alone. She doesn’t.

“Jared.”

Fuck. His head snaps to the side, mostly so she’ll just stop saying his damn name. He looks at her, not at all pleasantly, and she’s frowning and looking like she’s just exhausted or something. 

“What’s wrong?”

And he scoffs because is she even serious? He sits up heatedly because his passive aggressive side isn’t nearly as strong as his oppositional side. “I’m grounded because of something Evan did! How do you not get how fucked up that is?!”

He half expects her to get hung up on his language, but she doesn’t. Instead, she just keeps her voice very calm and says, “You’re not grounded because of something Evan did. You’re grounded because you flipped out.”

“Wouldn’t you flip out if everyone was yelling at you and blaming you for something you had nothing to do with?! I don’t understand how this is my fault!”

“Nobody was yelling at you. You can’t talk to us that way, Jared.” She shakes her head but still keeps her cool. “You’re still a child, and we’re still your parents. You have to respect that.”

“Oh, so I’m still a child when it’s convenient for you. Or when people want to yell at me or make me shut up! But all the other times, all anybody wants to do is bitch at me about how I need to act like an adult and grow up and take responsibility and-“

“Jared,” she cuts him off, but he doesn’t let her talk.

“And I know, all I ever do is fuck everything up, right? Like that’s why everybody hates me because all I do is talk too much, and I’m an asshole, and-“

 _”Jared.”_ And this time she actually grabs his shoulders and digs her fingertips in a little. _”Stop._

He does.

She lets out a breath and loosens her grip on him. “Where are your glasses?”

He shrugs. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. She glances around and the leans over his bed to retrieve them from the floor on the other side. When she sits back up, she tries to hand them to him, but he refuses to take them. He doesn’t know why. He just doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction or something, It doesn’t matter anyway because she doesn’t take the bait. She just takes it upon herself to push them onto his face, and he blinks at her and feels like he’s five. Like when he used to lose his glasses at least four times a week, and she’d have to go find them for him. Or how she used to slip them on for him first thing in the morning when she’d come to his room to wake him up. 

He’s well aware of the fact that he’s probably _acting_ like a five year old. But he doesn’t care.

“Now,” she says calmly, adjusting her own glasses. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

He says nothing. 

“Why are you so upset?”

“Because this isn’t fair!” He can’t help himself then. He really sucks at the silent treatment.

But his mom just shakes her head. “I’m not talking about being grounded. You’re upset about something else, I can tell. What’s wrong?”

And he just stares at her. The words are right there on his tongue. All of them. He could just open his mouth and tell everything. He could give his mom all the answers she wants, and maybe he could stop feeling like he’s going to crumble under pressure at any given second. He could just sit here and tell his mom every single bit of it. All about how he and Evan just made the whole thing up. How Evan just took the idea and ran with it. How now that everyone loves Evan, he no longer has any use for Jared whatsoever. How he can’t even find anybody to sit with at lunch. How Evan’s probably sleeping with a girl who’s convinced that he was best friends with her dead brother when, in fact, they literally only spoke to each other one time. He could tell her that they’re taking money from strangers all over the world to build an orchard for a kid whose only use for trees was probably just a literal shady place to buy drugs. 

His mom would be pissed. She might slap him or something. He’d _definitely_ be grounded probably indefinitely. She’d tell his dad, and his dad would scream at him, and they’d probably do something extreme like take everything away from him except his mattress or something. And then they’d tell Heidi, and she would be horrified. But they’d all decide amongst themselves that Evan was probably a victim in all this, too, because people always seem to think that just because Evan stutters a lot and has panic attacks every other day of his life that he’s incapable of doing anything even remotely bad without an outside influence. And Jared’s always been great at being that influence. 

Just like that time when they were seven and accidentally broke that antique vase in the hallway at their synagogue because they were running around while Jared’s mom went and took care of something in the office. And really, it was actually Evan’s fault because his clumsy ass is the one who tripped and pushed Jared into it. And they both _mutually_ decided to just play dumb about it even though they both freaked the fuck out for a few minutes. They were nowhere near the vase when Jared’s mom came to find them and take them home, and they almost made it out to the car without any sort of incident. But then Evelyn Hirsch (RIP- or don’t, nosy old bitch) came hobbling out to the parking lot and told on them because apparently she’d been in one of the side rooms and had seen the whole thing. And Jared got in a lot of trouble, more for the trying to hide it part than the actual accident part, but nothing happened to Evan. Jared literally heard his mother tell Heidi later, _”I’m sure it was Jared’s idea.”_

So what would be different now? Nobody would care that all Jared did was write a few emails that were never supposed to go further than a house across town. They wouldn’t care that Evan’s actively been lying to everyone he knows and the whole fucking world, for that matter. They wouldn’t care about any of that. Their parents might decide they needed to tell the Murphys, and they would probably blame Jared, too, because they apparently think Evan’s the best thing that’s ever happened in their life or something. And yeah, maybe that might make things weird with Zoe or whatever, but she’s probably so enamored with all his stuttering and wide-eyed _Evan_ -ness that she’d probably just forgive him. And they’d all hate Jared together because _somebody_ would have to take the blame, and why not the smartass ex-family friend who’s always been to blame for everything even remotely bad that Evan’s ever found himself involved in? Sure, of course. Why the fuck not?

And then they’d all feel some moral obligation to tell the truth about The Connor Project, especially since there are now thousands of dollars involved. And as much as a speech about climbing trees went viral, the fact that it was all a huge lie would go a hundred times further. And Jared would probably be arrested for fraud or something because they’d need a fall guy or a scapegoat or whatever, just to prove that somebody’s paying for it all. And then for the rest of his life, he’ll never be able to go to college or get a job or make friends or do _anything_ because the first thing that would come up under a Google search of his name would be a bunch of articles about how he was once the ringleader of one of the biggest lies in the history of the Internet. And all his existing friends would hate him, and like who would ever want to have sex with the mastermind of a freaking suicide awareness scam? No one, that’s who. And then he’ll just be a virgin until the day he ends up finally fucking dying of spontaneous combustion or something.

So, no. He just keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t tell his mother anything.

“Jared, if something’s wrong, I can help you. But I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me the truth.”

He wonders why she’s so convinced that something’s wrong, like if she suspects something or whatever. His mom is super smart. Like multiple college degrees smart. Like knows most of the answers on Jeopardy smart. There’s a chance she might be figuring things out on her own, but he really thinks she’d just come right out and ask him if she was. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” he mumbles, cutting his eyes away and looking at something on the other side of the room.

“What’s going on at school?”

 _”Nothing,”_ he says again, this time making his annoyance at the interrogation very clear. 

“Jared-“

“Why do you think something’s going on?” He snaps his head back to look at her again, trying to see what she knows or thinks she knows or whatever. 

“Because you were doing so much better this year. You were having friends over and going places after school, and you seemed to be having fun and enjoying yourself. And now you just come home and go straight to your room, and-“

“Because I’m a loser, Mom!” He blurts it out without thinking, but it’s not like it matters. The fact that she said he was doing so much better _this year_ just proves that she already knew it anyway. “Everybody in that school sucks! They’ve always sucked, so what difference does it make if this year is just like all the others!”

There’s one thing he can say about his mom. She’s not one of those coddling bullshit type of moms whose automatic response to that would be, _”Baby, you’re not a loser.”_ Which is good really. He appreciates that. She doesn’t try to paint the world in some happy veil where things aren’t as bad as they seem or any of that crap. She doesn’t try to gloss over whatever he says and pretend like it’s not real or try to convince him that he does, in fact, have lots of people who like him at school and maybe he’s just feeling a little bit down today. She doesn’t do any of that.

Instead, she just looks at him and says, “What’s going on with Evan?”

And he rolls his eyes because he just… He _can’t._ “Oh, my god… I am so fucking _sick_ of talking about Evan!”

She blinks at him, but she stops pushing it. Instead, she just nods. “Okay. But if something’s going on, I promise you can talk to me.”

He shoves a hand through his hair in irritation and squeezes his eyes shut for a second. “Fine! God. Jesus, just please leave me alone, okay!”

“Are you coming to dinner?”

“No.”

She sighs and stands up. “Fine. But I’m not fixing you anything later, so if you get hungry, you’re on your own.”

He shrugs. Whatever. He’s already resigned himself to death by starvation anyway.

… … …

He doesn’t speak to anyone for two straight days. Not at school anyway. His mother forces him into strained conversation, but at school, he keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t even speak to teachers.

Alana tries to talk to him, but he straight up ignores her. Just pretends like he doesn’t even hear her talking, and eventually, she gets pissed off and tells him that he’s being a jerk. And whatever. He _is_ a jerk. Good that she’s finally figuring it out.

He doesn’t even go anywhere near the cafeteria, even though he’s still protesting family meals and could actually do with something better than Poptarts and Pringles. But he goes to the library and sits there with that one weird sophomore kid who doesn’t wash his hair and always looks like he’s listening to stuff nobody else can hear.

But whatever. He’s protesting every aspect of his school life and his home life. And if that means he has to literally take a vow of silence and avoid everyone he knows, then that’s what he’ll do. It’s not like he fucking wants to talk to anyone anyway.

The second day of his self-imposed muteness, he can tell Alana’s annoyed about something. She spends all of study hall on her iPad and on her phone, and Jared really wants to ask what’s going on. But he doesn’t because he has principles, and those principles involve not speaking to any-fucking-body. So he just keeps his head bent over his physics notes and tries to ignore her. 

While he’s hiding in the library during lunch, he gets a text from Jonah asking if he wants to hang out this weekend, and he has to decline because he’s grounded as fuck for something he still doesn’t even understand. And he gets really pissed off when he has to say that because he still thinks it’s ridiculous and unfair, and he’s more than willing to never speak to his dad again for the rest of his life because he’s officially decided that he’s a giant dick and that his mom would be better off if he just left them to run off with the intern he’s having an affair with. He still has no proof of any such affair, but he’s mostly convinced himself that it’s true because he thinks that’s probably what assholes like his dad do- have affairs and cheat on their wives and shit. So yeah. Fuck him.

But his two days of silence ends after school because Evan walks straight up to him in the parking lot, looking half-panicked and fully on edge.

“We need more emails!” he says without even acknowledging the fact that he hasn’t actually spoken to Jared in a really long time. He just starts in like nothing ever happened. “Emails showing that he was getting worse.”

And Jared just laughs, a cold, humorless laugh because… No.

Evan looks at him, totally serious. “This isn’t funny.”

And Jared laughs again because he seriously can’t even believe any of this is real life anymore. “Oh, I think it’s hilarious,” he shoots back without missing a beat. “I think _everyone?_ Would probably think it’s hilarious.”

Evan blinks and shakes his head. “W-what, what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you should remember who your friends are.” It sounds like a threat. It’s supposed to sound like a threat. It _is_ a threat.

But Evan obviously isn’t the mood to be intimidated by vague threats because he actually glares at Jared and says, “I thought the only reason you even talk to me is because of your-your _car insurance?”_

And okay, maybe Jared has said that once or twice or fifty times, but… _”So?!”_

Evan takes a step closer, and he has a look on his face that Jared’s never seen before. Like an actual mean, malicious look. And he doesn’t stutter at all when he literally spits out the worst thing Jared’s ever heard him say. _”So,_ maybe the only reason you talk to me, Jared, is because you don’t have any other friends!”

And Jared hears his own voice rise to the point that people might stop and stare if anyone was around. But he doesn’t see too many people, and no one seems interested in their conversation anyway. And fuck vague threats because…

 _”I_ could tell everyone _everything!”_

Evan takes another step closer to him, and Jared stumbles backward just to get away. But it doesn’t matter because Evan’s leaning right into his face, leaning over him in a way that’s super intimidating because Jared knows he’s short, but he never really notices it until people who are bigger than him get in his space threateningly. And for half a second, Jared wonders if Evan’s actually going to hit him or something, but he doesn’t. He just towers over him and hisses his own non-vague threat.

“Go ahead, do it! Go tell everyone how you helped write emails pretending to be a kid who _killed_ himself!”

And Jared hates everyone and everything in that moment. But more than anything, he hates the tears that spring to his eyes out of nowhere and the way his voice wavers dangerously when he shoots back with the only thing his brain can come up with.

“Fuck you, Evan!” He takes a sharp breath and tries to swallow, but his voice still shakes when he finishes with, _“Asshole!”_

He leaves, basically running off in the opposite direction because he’s half-afraid Evan won’t let him pass if he tries to keep going the way he was headed. He gets to his car after circling around the edge of the parking lot, and he can barely get his keys out because he’s shaking so badly. He’s crying and shaking and a total fucking mess, but he manages to get his door open somehow. He throws his bag in and then throws himself in after it. He locks the door and immediately slams his head down onto the steering wheel, gripping it so tightly that his hands start to hurt while he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to figure out how to breathe. 

He can’t drive like this. He’s pretty sure he’s having his own version of a panic attack, which is just the most fucking ironic thing he’s ever heard in his entire life. But he’s never felt like this before. His chest hurts, and he feels like his heart is going way too fast. He’s pretty sure he might be having a heart attack or something because he can literally feel it pounding against his ribcage. But he also can’t fucking _breathe,_ which is even worse. It’s like he’s gasping for air and choking on tears at the same time, and he’s going to die. He truly, truly believes he’s going to die like this.

He should call 911. Or at least his mom or something. But he can’t do anything except hang on to the steering wheel and cry. He feels like he’s paralyzed, and what the fuck is wrong with him! 

He hates him. He just fucking _hates_ him. _So much._

He hates everyone, but mostly he hates him. Evan. This giant fucking prick he’s morphed into. He hates everything about him. Jared’s always been the only person who would ever even _talk_ to him! And now look! 

But Evan can go fuck himself because Jared’s done. He’s never going to speak to that asshole again as long as he lives. He can go off and live his stupid fake life with his new stupid fake family and his stupid fake girlfriend, and just… _fuck him._ His life’s so great now, well, good for fucking him!

Jared’s done. With all this bullshit. He’s done. And all this shit is going to come crashing down one day, and Evan’s going to need him, but he won’t be there because this is it. Evan wants to cut him loose? Fucking _fine._ But Jared’s not going to be there to pick the pieces up when he inevitably fucks everything up for himself.

Fucking asshole!

It’s over.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of this.

Jared has done some pretty petty shit in his life.

So what? It’s not like he’s big or intimidating or has a threatening bone in his body. In elementary school, he was always like the shortest kid in the class. In middle school, all the girls shot up around him, making him even smaller. Then the boys started following, and yeah, he grew a little bit, but not as much as everyone else seemed to. And he’s still very much on the small side. He’s never been in a fight because he knows he’d get his ass kicked. Nobody’s ever going to be scared or intimidated by him physically, so when people cross him, he doesn’t have a lot of options. He can just let himself be walked all over, or he can pull some petty shit and get his own version of revenge.

So that’s what he does.

He almost confronts Evan multiple times over the next few days, but he never does. He’s not _scared_ of Evan, like he doesn’t really think Evan would do something crazy like punch him or try to kick his ass or anything. But he doesn’t trust him not to lose his shit and do something even worse. So he stays away and sticks to what he knows. Good old-fashioned pettiness.

Evan needs new emails. Apparently he needs to show the world that Connor was actually somewhat fucked up and not just running around, jumping from apple tree to apple tree, laughing and joking… He did, after all, end up killing himself, so obviously Evan’s finally come to the realization that he needs to portray that or something. And he needs new emails. He told Jared that right before their blowup.

So naturally, Jared logs in to the email account and changes the password, the security questions, and all the recovery information. Good fucking luck now, Evan.

He really doesn’t know if Evan will even notice. Over the past several weeks, he hasn’t seemed to notice much of anything except for Zoe Murphy’s lips. But whatever, Jared does it anyway because it’s one of the only ways he can exact any kind of revenge, since he obviously can’t _actually_ tell the truth. He’s too scared of his own consequences to ever step up and throw Evan under the bus. But that doesn’t mean he won’t do what he can.

Turns out Evan does notice, though. Jared gets a text one night, and he rolls his eyes when he sees Evan’s name.

_Give me the password._

That’s all it says. No please, no I’m sorry, no fuck you very much. Just a demand for the password. Jared’s super tempted to be a total dick and text back with a clichéd _new phone, who dis?_ But he decides he doesn’t even want to give Evan the satisfaction of an acknowledgment. So he just ignores him.

Evan doesn’t text him again.

He continues his self-imposed solitary confinement, and he doesn’t give a shit that his dad tells him he’s “acting ridiculous,” mostly because he’s not _acting_ anything. He’s pissed the fuck off, so if he’s being ridiculous, his dad’s literally got himself to blame. Because last time he checked, he was still grounded with no actual end date in sight- which is totally unfair in any case, but is especially unfair in _this_ case because Jared still doesn’t even know what the hell he even did. And yes, he’s totally aware of the fact that every time he purposely and pointedly ignores whatever is coming out of his dad’s mouth, he’s probably just digging himself deeper and deeper, but he just doesn’t give a shit.

Fuck him. Seriously. This is so unfair, so whatever. Fuck him.

Jared literally goes to school, comes home, and then just shuts himself in his room for the whole night. It’s a silent protest of whatever bullshit his parents are trying to pull, and he’s getting a lot better at just shutting the fuck up and not responding to anything. He’s even getting pretty good at ignoring his mom, even though she keeps trying to talk to her. He can tell it’s making her crazy, but good. Maybe she should step in and end all of this crap, but she doesn’t. She just lets him keep being punished for something he didn’t even do, and he doesn’t care about their crap excuse that his attitude is the reason he’s grounded because he wouldn’t _have_ this attitude if his parents weren’t fucking crazy.

He’s probably super close to losing his car and his phone, but he lowkey doesn’t care because he knows his parents will still have to pay for both of those things even if he’s not using them. He’s kind of into the idea of making them waste their money, so whatever. If they want to take shit away from him, go for it. It’s not like he has anyone to talk to anyway, and he’ll just purposely miss the school bus and inconvenience his mom when she has to get out and drive him to school. Then he’ll just miss it on the way home, too, but he won’t be able to call for a ride because he won’t have a phone. So then he’ll just be stuck at the school all night, and his parents (at least his mom) will probably be freaking out and worried and might even regret the fact that they’ve been so cruel to him because they’ll naturally assume he’s dead or kidnapped or something. And good. It’ll serve them right.

But seriously, he mostly just doesn’t hate the idea of them wasting their money if they take away his stuff. It would cost more to turn off and reactivate his phone than it would to just pay the bill, and obviously they can’t stop paying for his car. So whatever. Take it away. He doesn’t even care anymore. It’ll be worse for them than it will for him. Seriously. So go for it. See? Petty.

He hates school. Officially. Like even more than normal because it’s just… It just sucks. Like seriously, he hates all these people, and he’s never been more ready to graduate and get away from them as he is now. He feels like all he does all day every day is just sit in class and think about how much he hates being there. He can barely even focus in his classes because he’s just… He just hates it, okay. And when he’s not in class, he’s in the hallway looking around at all these people who aren’t his friends, have never really been his friends, and he just wants to fast forward several months and never see them again.

He does his best to just avoid the few people who might actually speak to him. Alana gives up apparently, but he can gather from her face and maybe a text chain that he read over her shoulder that she’s obviously pissed off. He doesn’t know what Evan did to her, but she’s obviously not thrilled. Well, maybe that serves her right. She’s the one who went in to this whole thing willingly. Jared wonders what she’d say if she knew the truth. How many college applications would she have to send amendments to? 

And then there’s Evan who he really doesn’t see all that often on a normal school day, but suddenly seems to see nonstop once he starts hating the sight of his face. Evan’s everywhere, all over the fucking place. Jared glares at him whenever he sees him, even though he mostly just wants to avoid eye contact. But he’s not a pussy, and he refuses to let Evan have the satisfaction of thinking that he’s somehow won. Because he hasn’t won. Jared will be damned before he lets him win. Evan usually looks away within a second if he catches Jared’s eye, which is just basically normal for Evan. But still. Jared likes to think that it means he’s intimidated or something. Maybe at least a tiny bit worried that Jared might expose the whole thing, even though they both know he won’t- _can’t_ -do that.

Of course, wherever Evan is, Zoe’s right behind him. Or beside him. Or in front of him. She’s always fucking _there._ And Jared actually feels a little bit sorry for her, even though he mostly just hates her. She’s just following Evan around like a little lapdog or something, and he’s just playing her. Like literally _lying_ his way into her bed. Probably. Very likely at least. 

People are talking about them. Now that they’re public or whatever, everybody has an opinion, and most of them aren’t good. 

To be fair, Jared isn’t surprised that the majority of the hardcore Connor Project followers seem to be under the impression that Connor and Evan were more than just friends. Like a lot more. Like fucking in apple tree more. But who can really blame them? That’s the story Evan wove, so it is what it is. And Jared’s just not shocked that everyone seems to love the idea of them together because that’s what the Internet does- they love a good gay love story. In a world of Tumblr and Twitter, Connor and Evan are just a match made in heaven.

But throwing a girl into the mix? Especially _that_ girl? Well, it’s safe to say that there are a lot of people who are heartbroken, angry, and downright spiteful in response. Of course, Evan’s not the one getting the anger and the spite. That’s on Zoe. She’s starting to become an unsuspecting villain in this story. Jared still checks the blog and the comments, still clicks through the hashtags on Twitter. He doesn’t know why because he officially wants nothing to do with The Connor Project anymore. But he does, and he sees all the things that are people are saying. 

The focus of The Connor Project has shifted a lot since the beginning. It’s become less about Connor and more about Evan. Or very much so about Evan-and-Connor. And now that there’s Evan-and-Zoe, things are turning kind of nasty. Not overwhelmingly or whatever, like there are still a lot of people who are around to talk about their own feelings and how alone they feel and how it’s great to have a community and all that stuff… But it feels like the people who post the most often are talking way less about feelings and way more about how terrible Zoe is. 

A lot of it is super passive aggressive. _I feel super sorry for her, but maybe she shouldn’t be jumping into a relationship so soon after her brother’s death. That can’t be healthy._

The Twitter psychologists have a lot to diagnose. _She’s obviously trying to overcompensate because she feels guilty. Maybe she thinks a romantic relationship with Evan will make up for the sibling relationship she rejected with Connor._

And then there are the people who are just downright nasty. _Evan should watch out! You can tell she’s super manipulative. She’s probably so spoiled that she can’t stand anyone else getting attention, not even her deceased brother!_

Jared draws the line on his pettiness when he backs out of and deletes the anonymous profile he was creating to drop his own opinion. Unlike everyone else, though, he wouldn’t make Evan out to be the victim, especially not in this situation. But really, even though he does think Zoe’s getting the shit end of this deal, he still objectively dislikes her enough to decide against defending her. 

So instead, he just sees her from a distance and notices how he no longer ever sees her with her friends or anyone else. She’s always just with Evan. They go everywhere together, despite the fact that they have zero classes together. Every time he sees them, they’re holding hands whispering about something. Always smiling at each other, and Jared wonders, not for the first time, how it’s possible that Evan’s suddenly able to do all the things he seemed physically incapable of before. He can make eye contact and laugh and hold hands with a girl in _public._ And it’s just fucking weird.

But whatever. He’s done thinking about Evan. And Zoe. And Evan and Zoe. He’s done with all of that. All he’s going to do now is just shut his mouth and live his life. 

As far away from those fuckers as possible.

And for the most part, he does a pretty great job of doing just that. He keeps to himself, avoids everyone around him, really starts embracing the whole silent thing for the first time in his entire life. And it works out okay for a few days.

But then everything just starts crashing and burning… And _fuck._

He’s not allowed to do anything even remotely entertaining because he’s grounded, and his parents are assholes. So he’s just lying in his room, literally doing nothing but staring at the ceiling. He’s been doing that a lot lately, and honestly, he’s starting to get super bored. It doesn’t matter, though, because he refuses to do anything that might even remotely give his parents the idea that they’re winning. Evan’s not winning. His parents aren’t winning. Nobody’s winning. Just fuck them all, to be honest.

His phone starts buzzing, and he rolls his eyes. He really needs to turn his alerts off, but it’s just so much _work_ to go into his settings and find the alerts manager and… He’ll do it one day. For sure.

He ignores his phone, but it doesn’t stop. It just keeps buzzing. Over and over and _Jesus Christ._ Jared rolls onto his side and grabs his phone from his bedside table, ready to just turn the whole thing off because he can’t deal with this shit right now. But before he gets it turned off, he glances down and sees the notification numbers flying. 

What the hell is going on?

Against his better judgment, he opens Twitter, and he’s immediately met with five billion notifications. It doesn’t take long to figure out what’s going on when he clicks on the #TheConnorProject hashtag and sees a Tweet from Alana going viral right before his eyes. 

_Connor’s note is a message to all of us. Share it with as many people as you can. Post it everywhere._

Connor’s note… 

_”Shit…”_ Jared hears himself speaking out loud as his finger taps on the attachment, his stomach dropping before he even gets the note open.

_Dear Evan Hansen, it turns out this wasn’t an amazing day after all. This isn’t going to be an amazing week or an amazing year… because why would it be?_

Jared reads the words. Taking them in for the first time. Knowing the truth behind them.

_I wish I was a part of something. I wish anything I said mattered to anyone. I mean, face it. Would anyone even notice if I just disappeared tomorrow?_

He feels sick. Literally sick. The words swim in front of him, and he reads them over and over, trying to come to a different conclusion. But he doesn’t ever come to one. He knows the truth, and he knows that Evan…

He stares at the letter for several long minutes. He reads it again and again. He tries to pretend like he can’t _literally_ hear Evan saying these words in his head, but he can. He can, and it makes him sick. He doesn’t know… What is he supposed to do with this? 

Why is this _online?_

How did Alana even get this? Jared’s never even seen it. He’s heard about it, but he didn’t… He didn’t know it was _this._ He chews on his lower lip, thinking about how many times he’s said stuff… like just jokingly or whatever. Like how many times he’s given Evan shit about writing those letters and just… He didn’t know it was _this._

He starts reading the comments, even though he knows it’s a bad idea. He already knows they won’t be good. But he reads them anyway because… because he doesn’t know why.

It strikes him very quickly that everyone else thinks this is Connor’s letter. He briefly let himself forget about Connor- however stupid that is. These people don’t know that these are Evan’s words. Not like the fake emails or whatever. These are actually _Evan’s_ words- his _real_ words. But everyone else just thinks they’re Connor’s words- his final words. 

They think this is Connor’s suicide note because it _sounds_ like a fucking suicide note.

The comments are terrible. Jared knew they would be, but the sick feeling in his stomach gets worse and worse the more stuff he reads. Most of the earliest comments are just about Connor. 

_OMG how sad! This is heartbreaking!_

**This is so painful to read, but so many people can relate.**

_I’ve been in that same spot, and it’s terrifying. RIP Connor._

Slowly but surely, though, the comments start turning worse. 

_Connor wrote his suicide note to Evan Hansen because he knew his family didn’t give a shit._

**Evan was the only one who was paying attention.**

_Connor’s parents, by the way, are insanely rich. Larry Murphy is a partner at a corporate law firm. His salary is outrageous._

**The Murphys’ address is 1877 Miner Park Lane.**

_Every house in their neighborhood costs more than a million dollars. The community passcode for the gate is 999721._

**Zoe Murphy is a stuck up bitch. I go to school with her, trust me.**

_Maybe his parents should have spent some of their money helping Connor._

**DM me if you want Zoe’s cell number. Call that bitch day and night.**

More comments keep popping in by the second. Jared just stares at his phone. He has no fucking idea what he’s supposed to do. 

_Fuck the Murphys._

**They deserve all the bad shit that’s coming to them.**

_OMG somebody please record it if you get Zoe to cry! I hate her so much hahahahaha_

All of their information is out there. People are posting their address, the name and contact information of Mr. Murphy’s law firm, all of their phone numbers… People are encouraging each other to call the Murphys nonstop, to say horrible things to them. They want the people who live close enough to physically go there to their house or to the office and… And do _what?_ Jared has no fucking clue. These people are insane. Who the fuck says this stuff??

His door opens out of nowhere, and his mother sticks her head in. She apparently doesn’t even bother with the _idea_ of knocking anymore. She looks at him, not at all nicely (because she’s quickly losing her patience with him just like everyone else), and says, “If you plan to eat tonight, this is your chance.”

She stops, though, when he looks back at her. Her face softens a little bit, which makes him wonder what his own must look like. He doesn’t answer her about dinner, just stares at her while his mind races.

“What’s wrong?”

His phone is clutched in his hand, and he swallows. He should show her. Maybe she can do something. Maybe she can call the Murphys and warn them in case they haven’t already seen this. Or maybe she can call the police and tell them that the Internet is crazy and that people are planning… planning _what?_ Jared doesn’t even know. This is all so _stupid._

He feels like he might throw up.

“Jared…” She comes further into his room, uncrossing her arms and looking way more concerned than pissed off for once.

He should show her the note, too. The suicide note that wasn’t Connor’s. The suicide note that was _Evan’s._ And he should tell her the truth, just all of it. He’ll get in trouble, but who cares? Maybe she can’t do anything to protect the Murphys, but she can call Heidi. She can call Heidi and tell her that Evan obviously needs some kind of _serious help._ Because who writes a letter like this? Only somebody who obviously feels and thinks these things, and… And Heidi needs to know. And Jared can make that happen. He can tell his mother the truth, can tell her all of it. 

“Mom…”

His voice breaks off in the middle of the word, and he feels like his throat is closing up. His mom looks one-hundred percent worried now, and she walks all the way over and sits down on his bed. He sits up and looks at her, feeling very much like he’s still a little kid who just woke up from a nightmare. He’d wake up crying sometimes, probably until he was too old to really be crying like that. But his mom would always come find him and tell him it wasn’t real and that everything was okay. And she’d sit there on his bed and play with his hair until the feeling of her hand twisting through his hair would lull him back to sleep.

He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about that now. Because even though this whole thing is a huge fucking nightmare, she can’t tell him that it’s not real and that everything’s okay.

“What happened?” 

He can’t say anything- his voice won’t work or something. Instead, he just holds out his phone, hoping that his hand isn’t shaking or something totally crazy like that. His mom looks a little nervous, but she takes the phone anyway. She slides the screen open and starts reading. Jared doesn’t say anything, just watches as she scrolls reading the note, reading the comments, reading all of it. Or at least as much as she can when new comments are popping up literally every second. 

When she’s obviously read enough, she looks up. She seems disturbed, but there’s also something else on her face that he can’t really recognize. “Who thought it was a good idea to post this?”

Jared doesn’t say anything, just lifts a shoulder because it’s obvious who posted it. Why she thought this was a smart move or anything close to a good idea, he doesn’t know.

“Have you talked to Evan?” Jared shakes his head. “This is terrible.”

Jared wants to open his mouth and tell her just _how_ terrible. He wants to tell her that Evan’s the one who wrote it. Evan will hate him for good probably, but this isn’t _normal._ He needs… something. Help or something. Jared should tell his mom, so she can do something.

But he doesn’t.

He just sits there and listens to his mom talk about how awful it is. How sad the note is and how terrible the reactions to it are. She says Evan is probably horrified that Connor’s letter is public, and she says that the Murphys need to call the police. Jared doesn’t say anything. He just sits there feeling like he might throw up.

And he just does nothing.

… … …

Evan doesn’t come to school the next day. Neither does Zoe. Jared makes it halfway through first period and thinks about leaving, too, but he doesn’t. He just sits there and listens to people whisper around him. The Connor Project is the talk of the school again. The Kickstarter has exceeded its goal, and all everybody seems to be talking about is the note. 

Jared wants to shove his headphones on and block everyone out. He can’t deal with this- with people talking about the note and poor, poor Connor. He can’t focus on anything, and he just puts his head down and tries to disappear. Because as fucked up as everything was before, it’s a million times worse now. 

He doesn’t know what to do when he sees Alana in study hall, but his feet walk over to her without his permission. He sits down across from her and stares at her until she finally looks up. He can tell she’s upset, but she’s forcing herself not to show it.

“Yes?”

He should ignore her, just continue on with the voluntary muteness he’s exhibited for the past several days. But just like his feet, his mouth starts moving on its own.

“Why the hell would you post that?”

“Don’t start with me, Jared,” and she sounds annoyed and also defensive.

“Have you seen what people are saying?” She stares at him, and he presses on. “About the Murphys?”

“Why do you care?” she snaps back. “You don’t care about the Murphys! You’re always mean to Zoe. You were terrible to Connor. Why are you even involved in this?”

“Why are _you?”_

“Because I care about this cause! And I’m sorry if I’m the only one who does, but it’s important!”

People are looking at them, but Jared doesn’t give a shit. “Posting somebody’s _suicide note_ isn’t a great way to show you care, Alana!”

“People can relate to what he was feeling. They need to know where he was when he got into that mindset. This can help people, and I’m sorry if some idiots on the Internet are overshadowing what’s really important.”

“You just…” Jared shakes his head, stuttering because he’s totally at a loss for words. “How do you not realize how fucked up this is?!”

“It’s not your business, Jared. You don’t care about any of this, you never did!”

_”Excuse me.”_ Mr. Morris is staring at them pointedly from the other side of the room. Jared feels his face heat up when he notices that _everyone_ is staring at them. Alana ducks her head, obviously embarrassed, too. “You two need to take your lover’s quarrel somewhere else and do this on your own time.”

They shut up, both humiliated and embarrassed. Jared doesn’t look at her again, and she won’t look at him, either. Eventually everyone seems to forget about them and goes back to their own business, but Jared’s still mortified. When the hour’s up, Alana grabs her bag and leaves so quickly that he’s surprised she doesn’t literally run away.

When school finally ends, Jared walks to his car and tries to pretend like he’s not freaking out as much as he really is. He looks down at his phone, at Evan’s contact and the last message they exchanged- Evan’s demand that Jared give him the password. His finger hesitates over the call button, but he eventually sucks it up and just hits it. He closes his eyes when he hears the first ring, and then he opens them in disappointment when he immediately hears Evan’s voicemail pick up. 

He’s ignoring him. Of course he is.

The next day is exactly the same. Still no Evan. Still no Zoe. Jared skips study hall so that he doesn’t have to see Alana, and he spends a good portion of his afternoon classes feigning a migraine so that he can hide out in the nurse’s office. He wants to take a nap, but there’s no way that’s happening. Instead, he just uses his phone to read through Twitter, even though he knows he shouldn’t. He knows it’s all awful, and reading it is just going to make him feel worse.

For the briefest of seconds, he considers calling Zoe. He’s never called her before, but he has her number, thanks to a group text Alana had them both on a few weeks ago. He thinks maybe he should call her and make sure she’s okay, but he also knows how stupid that is. Zoe doesn’t want to hear from him. If she’s _not_ okay, hearing from him will just make it worse. He can’t suddenly pretend like he gives a shit about her.

Doing that is just as bad as all these idiots suddenly pretending like they care about Connor.

Instead, he tries Evan again, this time through text. He sends the message, asking Evan where he is, which he figures is a normal enough question considering the fact that he’s missed two days of school. He could say a lot else, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t ask Evan how he is or if he needs help. He doesn’t apologize for his part in their fight. He doesn’t apologize for his part in anything. He just asks Evan where he is and leaves it at that.

He gets no answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and reviews are very appreciated!


	12. Chapter 12

After four days of not seeing or hearing from Evan, Jared finally decides to just go over there. He’s surprised to see Heidi’s car in the driveway, and the sight of it almost makes him drive right past the duplex without stopping. He does stop, though, pulling into the driveway behind Heidi and briefly thinking how fucked up it is that he has a nicer car than she does. Not that his is brand new or super expensive or anything, but it’s newer than hers and probably worth more, too, if they went to trade them in or something. It’s messed up because all Jared’s done to deserve his car is just be a spoiled only child to semi-well off parents. Meanwhile, she’s worked two jobs and taken care of a kid by herself for the last decade. 

He turns his car off and grabs the keys out of the ignition. He takes a deep breath and immediately opens the door and gets out. If he hesitates, he’s probably going to end up chickening out, so he doesn’t. He just gets out and walks straight up to the front door and presses the doorbell. He tries to pretend like he isn’t nervous or slightly nauseous. He just stands there and focuses on making his face as blank as possible. Heidi opens the door within a minute.

“Hey, Jared.” She smiles sweetly at him, but he notices right away that she looks fucking _exhausted._ She always looks tired, but this is different or something.

“Hey.” He forces a smile in return because he’s doing his very best not to set off any warning alarms. He’s already been coming way too close with his own mom- he doesn’t need to feed Heidi’s suspicions, too. 

“I haven’t seen you in awhile.”

It’s true. She hasn’t. He doesn’t really remember the last time, honestly. She hasn’t been around the last several times he’s been over here, and he doesn’t know the last time he actually saw her. So he just nods and agrees with her.

“How are your parents doing? I talked to your mom not too long ago.”

Jared’s aware. Super aware. He tries not to let the bitterness reflect on his face, considering that phone call is what got triggered the events that led to him getting in trouble. Instead, he just nods again. “Yeah, they’re good.”

She smiles again. “I need to call her again soon. We’re _way_ overdue a wine night.” She lets out a breathy laugh, and Jared tries not think about the fact that all of this probably going to ruin whatever friendship Heidi and his mom still have left. 

Instead, he just says, “Is Evan here?” and her strained smile slips a little. 

“He’s not really feeling well, honey.”

Dread seems to weigh Jared down, starting in his stomach. He glances at the ground for a second and then back up. “Is he… sick?” he finally finishes lamely.

Heidi’s lips turn in for a moment, but then she gives him that same forced smile. “Just not doing that great right now. But he’ll be back at school soon.”

“Can I talk to him?” He doesn’t know why he asks it, but he puts it out there and can’t take it back.

Heidi looks hesitant, and he thinks she’s going to say no. Finally, though, she holds the door open a little further and motions him inside. “I’ll go see,” she says, lowering her voice a little bit, presumably so Evan won’t hear. “But he may not feel up to it.”

Jared just nods, already guessing the outcome. But he stands there by the front door while Heidi disappears down the hallway. He feels awkward and out of place, even though he’s been coming here since he was a little kid. He remembers “helping” when Heidi and Evan moved in here not long after Mr. Hansen left. He’s pretty sure the most actual help he offered was telling Evan where to put shit in his own room and also telling him that his new bedding was lame. The adults did most of the actual work, obviously, but Jared remembers still feeling like he deserved a pat on the back for his effort.

Mostly he remembers _ordering_ Evan to thank him for all his hard work helping him unpack his new room.

Heidi comes back about a minute later. She’s frowning a little, and she gives him a sympathetic look when she shakes her head. “I’m sorry. He’s just not feeling that great.”

And Jared nods because he already expected this. Unless he makes a run for it and barges right into Evan’s room without permission, there’s no way he’s going to talk to him. But since he’s not going to do any of that, he just lets himself be led back outside. He’s a little surprised, though, when Heidi follows him and closes the door behind her.

“Please don’t be mad at him,” she says once they’re officially out of Evan’s earshot. “He just… He’s kind of dealing with a lot.”

Jared has a hard time keeping eye contact with her, mostly because he wants to tell her the truth about the note. He feels himself almost say it, but the words never make it out. He doesn’t know _why_ he can’t say it- whether he’s too scared of what it means for his own consequences or whether he’s just scared that Evan will _actually_ hate him. 

He can’t shake the feeling that despite the fact that he knows this is probably the _right_ thing- obviously, because Evan clearly needs some kind of _something_ \- it still really just feels like he’d be tattling. And that’s not something they’ve ever done to each other. Granted, Jared has had way fewer opportunities to tattle, considering the fact that Evan’s not really known as a rule-breaker in the first place. But there have been a couple of times when he could have told on him for something and didn’t. There have been a _thousand_ times when Evan could have told on _him_ and didn’t.

But is this really tattling? He’d be trying to help. Honestly. He’s just not sure Evan would see it that way.

In the back of his head, he sees a scenario where he tells Heidi about the note, and in retaliation, Evan unleashes fifteen years’ worth of offenses that officially get Jared grounded until he’s 90. A couple of months ago, he wouldn’t have thought Evan even had it in him to do that. Now, he’s really not so sure. Like what if he’s just been sitting on all this shit, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to reveal it all and ruin Jared’s life. Like what if he’s got some huge computer file that has everything from that time he took two extra Blow Pops out of the treat bucket at temple when he was four to that time he got mad at his dad when he was nine and peed in the trunk of his car as some form of passive aggressive retaliation to that time when he was fifteen and busted into the liquor cabinet for the first time. Not to mention the endless things in between that Evan’s either witnessed firsthand or has heard about because Jared has always liked bragging about stuff he’s gotten away with. So what if he’s just been hoarding them all up, just waiting for the perfect chance to unleash all of Jared’s wrongdoings out into the world? He could. Jared has no doubt that this new and greatly downgraded Evan is more than capable of ruining his life.

He gets pulled out of his head when Heidi walks over to him and actually puts an arm around his shoulder. She walks them over a few feet and then pulls them both down to sit on the steps of the small concrete porch. Jared doesn’t know what else to do, so he just lets himself be guided until he finds himself sitting there, tucked under her arm. He still can’t really look at her, but he listens.

“Look, honey. I don’t know everything that’s been going on, and I know it might feel really easy to be mad at Evan right now… But you’re his best friend.”

Jared, though, just shakes his head. “No, I’m not.”

But Heidi just taps a finger against his shoulder and nods. “You always have been. When you guys were little, that’s all I used to hear- _Jared said this or Jared has that or Jared did this._ All the time.”

Jared doesn’t point out the key part of that sentence- when they were _little._ He probably literally told Evan that he should be jealous of him or idolize him or some shit. And anyway, that was a long time ago. Definitely way before Jared figured out that one of the easiest ways to blend into the background and take the heat off of himself was to put it on someone weaker. 

“He’s just going to need a friend. I just hope you’ll be there for him because he needs you.”

And Jared hears himself mumble, “You should just tell Zoe.” Because that’s all Evan cares about. She’s the only person he wants to be around.

But Heidi kind of tenses a little bit and says, “I think they broke up…”

And Jared feels his head snap up at that, and he actually makes eye contact with her for the first time in several minutes. “What?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’m just… I’m pretty sure that’s over.”

Ideally, Jared would be pleased by this news. For multiple reasons. Mostly because he’s a bitter fuck and would bask in the fact that the most gag-worthy love story he’s ever witnessed firsthand had crashed and burned. Realistically, though, he just feels sick. Because he knows there has to be a _reason_ why they broke up- there’s no way they just magically decided that they were getting bored with each other, not after weeks of literally being connected at the hip. So that means it has to have something to do with the note- either Zoe blames Evan for all the threats and hate her family is getting in bulk or… Or something else.

“He’ll be ready to talk soon.” Heidi smiles kind of sadly. “He’s just not feeling great lately. And he’s been trying some new medicine, so it’s making him a little sick. But I think he’ll be back at school soon, and I would really appreciate it if you could just forgive him for… for _whatever’s_ been going on and just be his friend.”

Jared focuses on one part of that and ignores the rest. “He’s got new meds? So he’s been to his doctor?”

Heidi looks confused, but she nods. “Of course…”

And Jared just nods but doesn’t say anything else. If he’s been going to his therapist then surely he’s safe enough, right? Like Jared doesn’t need to tell anyone about the note because Evan’s already getting help. So he won’t do anything stupid or like hurt himself or whatever. So it’s fine. Everything’s fine.

“And you’re like… here? With him, or whatever?”

Heidi still looks confused and also a little suspicious. “I took the week off, yeah.”

“Okay, good.”

So it’s fine. Evan’s been to the doctor. His mom’s at home. Everything’s fine. 

He stands up and turns around to look down at Heidi. “I better go. But just… I’m grounded? So can you like not tell my mom I was here because I’m only supposed to be at school or home?”

She sighs. “Jared.”

“I mean, she probably wouldn’t care, but just in case. Or whatever. Can you just not mention it?”

And Heidi sighs again but eventually nods. He realizes the irony of him asking her to lie to his mother about his whereabouts considering everything, but whatever. He just waves and half runs to his car, mostly just desperate to get away.

… … …

Alana texts him later that night. One huge long text with perfect grammar that shows up on his phone as multiple messages because it’s too long.

_I know you’re mad at me, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said you don’t care about The Connor Project because I know you do. I can tell that this means something to you, the same way it means something to all of us. I texted Zoe to apologize for posting the note, but she hasn’t answered. I guess she’s really mad at me, too. I didn’t mean for things to turn out like this, and I really didn’t expect people to react so horribly. Maybe I should have predicted it because it’s the Internet, and the Internet is horrible. I just wanted to share Connor’s words with the community so that people could understand. I realize now that it was a very selfish thing to do because even though we’ve surpassed the Kickstarter goal, a lot of people I care about got hurt in the process. Could you please tell Evan how sorry I am? He won’t respond to me, either, and I don’t blame him. I just wish he would accept my apology even if he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore. I’ll resign from The Connor Project if that’s what he and the Murphys want. I just want them to know that I’m sorry, even though I know it doesn’t make anything any better. Again, I am also very sorry for the things I said to you in class the other day. I have been very stressed out and upset over all of this, and it just felt like you were attacking me. I know you weren’t, and I’m sorry. If you don’t want to be my friend now, either, I understand, but I am sorry. Please accept that._

Jared reads the message and almost ignores her. He doesn’t care about her apology. They weren’t friends to begin with, so he doesn’t know why she’s so desperate. But then he stops and thinks about the situation. He thinks about Zoe ignoring her. And Evan ignoring her. And he knows she’s not lying about being sorry- she obviously knows she made a mistake. If he ignores her, too, that just seems like some kind of excessive punishment that she really doesn’t deserve. 

So in the interest of being a halfway decent human being, he texts her back. Nothing long and drawn out like he did- just a very simple _it’s fine_ \- and leaves it at that. 

… … …

It takes a whole week for Evan to come back to school.

Zoe still hasn’t shown up, and Jared wonders briefly if her parents have just taken her out completely. It’s not like they can’t afford to send her somewhere else. There are a couple of private schools around, and he wouldn’t be shocked if Zoe was suddenly attending one of those. He also wouldn’t blame anyone. He tries to imagine what his own parents would do if he was suddenly receiving literal death threats. Granted, most of the people who saying the worst things don’t go to their school or even live anywhere around here, but there are enough messages of people claiming to know Zoe and claiming to know her schedule and stuff to obviously freak people out. So maybe she just doesn’t go here anymore. Maybe she goes to Catholic school now, or she’s homeschooled. He assumes nothing has actually happened to her because that would _definitely_ be on the news.

Jared still isn’t really talking to Alana, but he does ask her one day if she ever heard from Zoe. She just shakes her head and looks sad or embarrassed or something. And he knows she’s not lying about being sorry. He knows she obviously realizes the reasons why what she did was wrong. He doesn’t feel sorry for her, but he doesn’t hate her, either.

It’s not like he hasn’t done plenty of fucked up shit himself.

But then there’s Evan. He shows up the following Monday, and Jared sees him from across the hallway before school starts. He looks like crap, sad and kind of blank faced. He looks skinnier, too, which is dumb because it’s only been a week. But his shoulders are hunched, and he’s staring at the ground, and Jared realizes that as much as he hated the sight of semi-confident, hand-in-hand with Zoe Murphy, smiling Evan Hansen… he hates the sight of this one even more. Jesus, this fucking kid.

Jared spends most of the morning not paying attention to his classes and contemplating whether he should make an effort. Heidi’s words have been swirling through his head pretty much nonstop, and he hates that he doesn’t know what the hell to do with them. Because seriously? He’s still _really_ fucking pissed at Evan. And there’s that whole vow he made to himself that he would never fucking speak to him again and definitely wouldn’t be there to help him when the whole thing went to shit. And part of him wants to hang on to that because he’s just really, really pissed.

But all of that was before. Before the note and whatever else went down. Before Jared knew… Well, he still doesn’t really know, but he has a better understanding that obviously Evan’s really _not_ that okay. And a few months with a fake life probably didn’t like fix all that or whatever. And now whatever’s going on with Zoe… 

He doesn’t see him at lunch. He doesn’t see him at all until schools over, and Jared’s heading to his car, determined to just go home and figure shit out in his head. But he sees Evan standing by the front door of the school, and there are maybe like five people around him. They’re obviously talking to him, and even though Evan’s gotten pretty freaking great at getting over his whole not being able to talk to people thing, he’s apparently slipped right back into it. Because he’s standing there looking like he’s on the edge of a panic attack or something, obviously mumbling answers to whatever the other people are saying while he tries to simultaneously back into the wall _and_ melt into the ground. Jared doesn’t know what the other people are saying, but he doesn’t think it’s anything bad. They’re probably just expressing their sympathy or something, just like everyone likes to do. But Evan looks like he just _cannot,_ so Jared makes a split second decision. 

“Hey. You ready to go? I’m already late.” He walks up to the group and forces his way into the conversation, looking at Evan expectantly and praying that Evan has enough sense to play along. Evan looks at him, actually makes eye contact, and blinks. Jared narrows his own eyes just slightly, the same way he used to do when they were kids and he needed Evan to back him up on something that may or may not have been true. 

For a split second, he thinks Evan’s just going to ignore him, but then he nods and mutters, “Yeah. S-s-sorry.”

Jared starts walking across the parking lot, and Evan stays a couple of steps behind him. They don’t speak to each other, and when they finally make it to Jared’s car, Evan just stands there awkwardly for a second while Jared throws his bag into the backseat. Then he just mumbles a quiet, “Thanks,” and turns to walk away.

Jared rolls his eyes and kind of hates himself when he says, “Just get in the fucking car.”

Evan turns around and looks at him, and Jared once again thinks he might ignore him. Like maybe Evan’s just as pissed at Jared as Jared is at him. But then he finally walks over, opens the passenger door, and gets in. Jared takes a second to take a calming breath before he joins him.

They don’t speak to each other as they navigate the after school traffic and finally make it onto the main road. It’s quiet and awkward as fuck, and Jared finally turns some music on because he can’t take being trapped in a silent small space with Evan. He puts it on the rock station, mostly because he knows Evan doesn’t like it. And yes, he’s petty. But he turns it up maybe too loudly and just continues to drive. Evan doesn’t say anything, doesn’t react at all to the music. Just sits in the passenger seat with his fingernails sliding lightly across the seatbelt.

It doesn’t take long to get to Evan’s house once they’re out of the initial traffic. He only lives a couple of miles from school, and Jared’s pulling into his driveway before the first song even ends. Evan doesn’t waste any time after the car’s in park, just mumbles another, “Thanks,” and gets out, hauling his backpack after him.

He walks quickly toward the front door, and Jared watches him fumble with the keys as he struggles to get it unlocked. He manages, though, and he disappears into the house without another glance backward. And something about his hurry to escape just sets Jared off. And before he knows it, he’s jerking the keys out of the ignition and running up the driveway after him. He tries the door, but it’s already locked, so he just starts banging on the door over and over again until Evan finally opens it and looks at him in surprise.

“You don’t get to not fucking talk to me.” Jared hears himself speak before he even thinks about it. He doesn’t wait for an invitation, just pushes his way past Evan and into the house. 

“What are you doing?”

“We’re going to talk because you’ve been ignoring me, and I don’t appreciate it.”

Evan looks almost dumbfounded, but he shuts the door anyway. When he looks at Jared, though, he just shakes his head. “Because I don’t… Why do you… I don’t _want_ to talk to you.”

“Too fucking bad.”

“What do you want?”

“What happened with Zoe?”

Evan stares at him, and a flash of hurt shoots across his eyes. It only lasts a second, though, before Evan obviously remembers that he hates Jared because he just looks away and says, “N-none of your business.”

And okay, _what?_

Jared might be halfway impressed if he didn’t fucking hate him right back. So he just crosses his arms and says, “Oh, I think it’s very much my business because whatever you’re doing to fuck up your own life very likely directly involves you fucking up mine, too. So what the hell did you do?”

Evan doesn’t look up, just keeps his head turned and swallows. He’s obviously not in any hurry to answer, but Jared’s not in any hurry, either, so he just stands there with his arms crossed and stares at him until Evan finally mumbles an answer. 

“I told them the truth…”

Jared’s not even sure he heard correctly, so he says, “Did you just say you _told_ them the _truth?”_ He must have misheard because there’s just… There’s no way.

Evan takes another annoyingly long time to answer, but he finally forces a nod. Just a quick jerk of his head, and he still doesn’t look over.

“Are you fucking _stupid?!”_

Jared’s mouth falls open, and he feels his chest tighten a little bit. His brain immediately flips into overdrive, reliving all the many different scenarios his brain has cooked lately about what might happen if they were found out and caught. He’s going to fucking jail. He can’t go to fucking _jail!_ Like he’d end up somebody’s bitch within minutes, and he can’t deal with that shit!

“Why the hell would you…” He shakes his head rapidly in disbelief. “You’re so fucking _stupid!”_

And then Evan looks at him- glares, more like. His head snaps over, and his voice isn’t remotely nice when he says, “Leave me alone, Jared.”

“Not fucking likely.”

Whatever nervous, anxiety-ridden Evan that showed up at school today has obviously disappeared because now he just looks super pissed off, and words just come flying out of his mouth at rapid fire speed. “I didn’t tell them about you! So whatever-whatever-whatever _worries_ you have or whatever about being caught, just whatever! Don’t worry about it! I just said it was me, so they don’t know about you or any of it, and just, just _leave me alone, Jared!”_

He yells the last part, and Jared’s kind of stunned into silence for a second. He should probably do just that- just leave Evan alone because fuck him really. This whole thing is his fucking fault, and he’s the one with the personality transplant that’s turned him into whatever the hell this is. But Jared’s never really been great at following orders _or_ just leaving well enough alone. So he starts right back in. And this time, he hits low.

“Well, how did your fake mommy take it knowing that her son’s suicide note was really just some fucked up letter your shrink prescribed?”

He doesn’t know why he says it, and he regrets it the second the words leave his mouth. He refuses to let that regret show, though, because he’s mad and bitter. And maybe he felt sorry for Evan for a second when he read that note, but that was the old Evan. This Evan clearly has no trouble saying whatever the hell he wants to.

Except he kind of looks like somebody punched him in the stomach, and he just blinks at Jared before quietly saying, “S-s-stop it.”

And Jared knows he’s a bad person- like some kind of sick, fucked up person- because he actually takes pleasure in the way Evan stutters and the way his face and whole demeanor changes. So he presses on because he’s got the upper-hand now, and that’s the way he likes it.

“Was she super upset that Connor didn’t even give enough of a shit to even leave any kind of note? Because who _does_ that? Who kills themselves and doesn’t even leave a fuck you letter?!” He laughs some evil, bitter laugh and shakes his head.

“Shut up…” Evan’s curling into himself again, his eyes flickering to the floor.

“He couldn’t even leave a note. Not even some sad, pathetic, whiney shit like you wrote. Way to help the Murphys, Evan!”

“Fuck you, Jared!” 

The back of Jared’s head knocks into the wall when Evan shoves him- _hard_ \- but he only blinks in shock for a second before he shoves him right back.

_”Fuck you!”_ He pushes him just as hard, and Evan stumbles backward into the opposite wall of the narrow entrance hallway.

And then they stop. That’s it. They don’t get into some crazy brawl or anything. They both just stand there staring at each other, both breathing a little too hard. It’s the first time in their entire lives that they’ve ever come anywhere close to an actual physical fight, and it’s over as quickly as it starts.

Jared kind of feels like he might puke. He doesn’t even know what the hell is going on inside of his head, but he doesn’t like it. It’s like there’s too much happening, and he can hear a slight ringing in his ears. But he just stands there, breathing a little too heavily and watching Evan stare at him. Jared wants to scream and also feels like he might cry, which is so fucking stupid because what the hell. But he’s the first one to break the silence, his voice weak and thin and a little too fragile.

“Why did you write that letter?”

But Evan just stares at him, shivering just slightly as he shakes his head. “Pl-please stop…”

Jared his own voice shake a little. “Why would you say nobody would notice if you just disappeared?”

“Because who would?” Evan doesn’t raise his voice again, but it’s clearer. His eyes are a little wet, and he stares at Jared who just rolls his eyes.

“Uh, your mom? How do you think she’d feel if you pulled some stupid shit like that?”

Evan looks like he might be sick, too, like he could throw up if he wanted to. But he just shakes his head and once again asks, “Will you just stop?”

But Jared has no intention of stopping because he’s upset, too. Maybe he doesn’t deserve them, but he wants answers. 

“And what about me? You don’t think I’d notice if you just _disappeared?”_

“You don’t even _like_ me!” Evan’s voice is a little louder, and he looks like he’s in stunned disbelief or something.

Jared rolls his eyes. “Please. I have been there for you your whole fucking life.”

“Because you _had_ to be!”

Jared ignores that. “You don’t get to just say crap like that and act like there’s nobody in your life who gives a shit!”

“Well, you don’t!” And now Evan’s voice is getting louder again, just like Jared’s. “You’ve told me, you’ve always told me, like you’ve always just said that you only t-tolerate me because your mom makes you!”

“Fuck you, Evan, if you don’t remember all those times I’ve saved your ass at school when kids or teachers or whatever were trying to put you on the spot, and you were about to fucking melt down. And fuck you, too, if you don’t remember all those times I let you have first dibs on my Xbox because your dad took yours to fucking Colorado or wherever he fucked off to. And also fuck you if you don’t remember all those times I gave you my food so you wouldn’t have to go through the lunch line or all those times I let you take my iPod home because you hated hearing your mom cry in her bedroom or any of those five million times I shared everything I fucking owned with you so that you wouldn’t have another panic attack when your mom went out of town because you were scared she wasn’t coming back! So just fuck you!”

He shuts himself up and just stands there trying really hard to slow his breathing down a little bit because he feels really vulnerable, and he hates it. Evan just stares at him. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there and looks at Jared, blinking a little too often but not saying anything.

It’s really fucking awkward, and Jared kind of wants to make a break for it, but he doesn’t. He just stands there like his feet are unable to move or something. His head still feels too fuzzy, and he still kind of wants to puke. Finally, though, Evan’s face changes, and he looks like he’s just breaking right there in the hallway. 

“I don’t know what to _do…”_ He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, and Jared thinks he’s probably crying. He thinks he could probably cry, too, if he let himself, but he won’t. “Everything… It’s all just, everything’s just…” Evan stops himself and takes in a deep breath. When he finally lowers his hands, his eyes are red. “They hate me. Zoe hates me.”

Jared doesn’t know what to say. _Oh, I’m sure they don’t hate you. It’ll all be fine, just wait and see!_ Yeah. Not likely. They probably do hate him. Or at least want him far away from their lives. There’s no point in sugarcoating it because Evan already knows that. 

“I can’t,” Evan shakes his head helplessly. “I can’t fix anything. Everything’s just… I just r-ruined everything.”

Jared has no answer for that. He doesn’t know how to fix it, either, and there’s no use in trying to pretend like he does. Everything’s a mess. It just is. They’re either fucked or they’re not. The Murphys could ruin them. Probably _should_ ruin them. For some reason, Jared thinks they probably won’t.

He feels his phone buzzing in his pocket, and he pulls it out to check. “Shit. It’s my mom.” He doesn’t answer her call, but he’s careful to let it ring out naturally so that she doesn’t know he’s purposely ignoring her. “I’m probably in trouble.”

“Why?”

Jared rolls his eyes, trying to push down the bitterness that creeps up automatically. “Because I’m grounded.” He pointedly leaves out the _because of you_ that’s on the tip of his tongue. “I was supposed to be home like half an hour ago.”

“Oh.” Evan looks back down at the floor, and Jared feels like shit. “You bet-better go. You should go.”

Jared nods. “Yeah…” He hesitates, though, because there’s a lot of stuff he wants to say, but he knows his mind could never articulate words that his mouth would actually say. So instead, he just glances at the ground for a second himself and then looks back up. “Just don’t do any stupid shit, okay?”

Evan looks at him, obviously nervous and a little unsure. “Okay…”

“I’m serious, Evan.” And he is, even though he doesn’t know any compassionate way to actually express that. “Just like… I’m serious. Don’t do anything stupid. Just like call somebody or something. Fuck, call me. Just don’t do anything like that, okay?”

And Evan nods. He barely moves his head, but it’s a nod. Jared doesn’t know if it’s an honest nod or not, but he’ll have to trust that it is. Because he can’t fix things for Evan. He never could. He doesn’t know why that fact is suddenly hitting him so hard. 

“Promise?” he asks hesitantly, and he sounds like a little kid. He doesn’t really care that much.

Evan nods again. Nods and then swallows. And barely chokes out an answer. “Yeah. Promise.”

And Jared will just have to trust that because the rest is out of his control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm sorry there's no big happy ending, but I hope you've enjoyed the story.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to know your thoughts on this. I'm sure it's been done a thousand times already, but I really want to explore the story from the eyes of someone else. The other characters will definitely show up soon.


End file.
